


Remember

by MiladyDragon



Series: Dragon-Verse: Series Two [15]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Amnesia, Angst, Body Horror, Dragon-Verse, Dragons, F/F, Horror, M/M, Magic, Memory Alteration, Mind Control, Non-Consensual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-03-26 12:51:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3851638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiladyDragon/pseuds/MiladyDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something was wrong at Torchwood.  Kathy Swanson knew this.  What she didn't know was who was the strange man who was spending time with her fiancee, what had happened to Ianto, and how she was supposed to fix things...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Dragon-Verse version of "Adam". Please be aware that this story is dark in places and does contain elements of Non-Con (if you're familiar with the episode then you know what I mean) and other instances that might be triggery for some people. I beg you, watch the tags and read at your own risk. 
> 
> This story took me a long time. My original outline had it shorter and actually lighter than what eventually became "Remember", but when I re-watched the actual episode I knew it had to be different than what I'd first came up with, and the material called for something much darker. This is going to be hard to write, and possibly hard to read for some of you. If you can't see it through, I certainly understand.

 

 

**_Unknown_ **

****

There was something wrong with his head.

His mind was muddled and dark, thoughts refusing to surface from the miasma that had become his inner eye.  His brain felt far too large for his skull, as if it had been stuffed into something that simply couldn’t contain it.  There was bright pain and black terror; grey mutterings of half-felt emotion and golden sparkles of power, and he didn’t recognise any of it even as it sank back into his deeper sub-consciousness like pebbles tossed into a midnight-tinged lake.

There was music as well; disjointed, words strident and unknown to him, echoing within the damaged mind in ways that were impossible to block out.  At first, he’d believed that this music was outside of his body, however using his hands against his ears in an attempt to block it out didn’t work.  There was a certainty that this should be familiar, but anytime he’d tried to embrace the disharmonious sound he bodily flinched away although there wasn’t a physical component to the horrific noise.

It wasn’t right, he was certain of that even if he could no longer recall what it should sound like.

There was cold, hard stone under his hands, and somehow he felt this should be comforting but it wasn’t.  Other objects surrounded him, and this also should have been reassuring but for some reason these felt as if they belonged to someone totally different, although he was positive they were owned by him.  He didn’t know how he knew that, however this dark place was familiar to him, his eyes picking out details in the blackness in a way that he was certain was unusual for anyone but him. 

But he didn’t _recall_. 

He realised he didn’t know his name, or where he was even though there was something submerged within the deepness of his mind told him that he should know this place, that this was a safe haven for him…and for someone else, but there was also no name to accompany that certainty.  There was blue, the colour alive in ways that colours shouldn’t be, and it was connected in some way to this other person who shared this space with him. 

Just as he associated green with his true self…whoever that would be.

He rose to his feet, kicking something in his way…it was soft, and with hesitant hands his felt for it, tangling his fingers up in soft cotton.  A blanket, perhaps? 

He hadn’t known what was blanket was until he was holding it, but once that identification surfaced it stayed with him tenuously, as if it was a sensory ghost that was haunting his muddled thoughts. 

That was when he recognised other objects…pillows, shelves, and things flowing into his mind and then disappearing within the darkness that choked off the rest of his memories and vanished like a morning mist burned off by the rising sun.

He paused, his head cocking unconsciously as he considered that.  Did he know what that was?  He must have, if the comparison had come to him like that.

But then it vanished as well, and he found himself making his quiet way toward the door of the room he was in.  An instinct was yelling at him that, no matter how safe he considered this place, he had to get out.  He couldn’t stay there, because whoever had left him there meant him harm, and would be returning.

He didn’t know how he knew that. 

The music in his head jangled and screamed at him, and while he couldn’t make out what it was trying to tell him he let it guide him. 

He didn’t have a choice.

His questing fingers found the door, and while he wouldn’t have been able to say what was that moved them – because it wasn’t his consciousness, since that wasn’t working at the moment – they flitted over what was the locking mechanism and, somehow, the door opened under his touch.  There was barely a noise as the door swung open just enough for him to look out into the darkened corridor.

No one was there.  He wasn’t certain if that was good or bad.

His mind was telling him something, and he couldn’t interpret it properly.  It was like a sense of roughly knowing which way to go, but it was puzzling him because there was the notion that he should be able to read the impressions he was receiving without the pain and darkness and despair that soaked through him like icy water. 

There were golden sparks in his vision.  He could just make them out in the corners of his eyes, but if he looked fully at them they disappeared, only to reappear once more like glittering ghosts of lost souls coming to haunt him.  He felt them on his skin, cool and yet prickly; solid and yet amorphous, whispering things against the darkness of his damaged mind, explaining what was happening and yet he was unable to interpret the message.

He glanced down the corridor; both ways he somehow knew were dangerous, but the way to his left moreso.  That way he’d been carried from, of that he was absolutely certain, his antagonist laying in wait for him to emerge through that direction. 

His feet turned him the opposite way.

Deeper and deeper he slunk through the darkness like a wraith, not knowing where he was going but moving anyway.  At some point his mind switched off, and his body followed its own instincts as he travelled farther and farther away from the room he’d been trapped within…no, not trapped; although that music within his mind, as discordant was it was, was attempting to communicate just how very wrong it had been for him to have been locked within what should have been his place of rest.   That should not have occurred, of that he was certain, but just how that certainty registered was beyond him in that moment.

He had no idea how long he stumbled along before he came to a door.  He would have missed it, except for the acuteness of his vision, which he knew shouldn’t have been that sharp in the pitch blackness, and yet was.  Some innate knowledge told him there was a light, if only he could find where to turn it on, but he didn’t even try.  He didn’t want to give himself away; his enemy would search for him as soon as it became obvious that he’d left his safe place.  A shiver went through him, and his injured mind shied away from recalling just why he had an enemy that would be seeking him out.

_Remember_ …

He gasped as the pain hit, sharp and sure as a blade.  He crumpled to his knees, pressing his hands against his head as hard as he could, keening softly as he collapsed.   That word was taboo; something that he absolutely could not say, even if he had the ability to speak it aloud.  Those were gone as well as his very identity, and nothing would bring them back to him.

That word sank back again into his shattered mind, and he breathed deep, biting his lip and hoping that the noise he’d made wouldn’t draw anyone to him.  His instinct was still telling him he had to escape, to get away from that place, wherever he was, that should hold some modicum of peace for him yet frightened him beyond anything he could name.

Not that he could name much.

The words were not there, not anymore, and he mourned them.

Getting shakily to his feet, he ran his hands over a particular place on the wall, and his fingers encountered _something_ that he didn’t recognize in his hazy recollection.

However, trembling fingers had their own minds, and he found himself working at the box as if he’d always known what to do.  And maybe he had; he couldn’t tell, not anymore; everything was lost to him, including language and thought and all that he had once been.

There was a sound – and he glanced back the way he’d come, because noise was to be avoided and he was afraid – and the door opened slowly, revealing more darkness and a smell that made him gag.  There was a dripping of water; and he was so very glad that he knew what water was…or was he?  Was that gladness? 

He didn’t know.

Without a single thought about what he was doing – not that he could have, honestly – he took his first step into yet another unknown passageway, only knowing that he had to escape, that it was almost a physical imperative to get away from what had trapped him in what should have been a place of peace for him and the other he could not recall.

He stepped into water.

The smell grew worse, but he had to ignore it even though it brought back half-thoughts and illness and what he realised was decay.  Water seeped into his…his shoes, yes, that was it, and it was cold and uncomfortable and then even that was gone as he made his way forward. 

His mind shut itself off once more, only the movement of one foot in front of the other and the smell and the harshness and the black surrounding him.  Nothing broke through either darkness…the one in his mind and the one slowly suffocating him. 

Somehow, his hand had been placed against the wall, and his fingers trailed through muck and dirt, slipping along the curved stone-like substance…he knew it wasn’t true stone, although once again the knowledge left him almost as soon as it came to him. 

There was no way his brain could keep track of the time, so there was no indication how long he’d been in the inky blackness before his hand hit something.  He automatically grasped it; it was some sort of metal…yes, metal…and it was connected to the wall.  He used his hands to interpret what this was, even as his eyes made out the shadows of it against the unnatural stone.  A glint of something caught his attention, and he looked up.

Light was streaming through a couple of holes in what looked like a metal roundel in the ceiling.

It was bright enough to blind him although it was very weak; but then, he’d been in the darkness for what could have been years as far as he was aware.  He blinked, and let himself get used to it, before grasping what his mind was telling him was a ladder. 

The awful song seemed to be encouraging him upward.  He leaned his head against the ladder, breathing in the foetid air, gathering what strength he had left in order to climb. 

He had no idea what was above him.  Only that his instincts and the song that wouldn’t leave him be was coaxing him into moving toward that light, the glare that was stinging his dark-sensitive eyes in ways that were almost harsher than any pain he’d been feeling so far.  It was as if he was a creature of the black, and that this brightness was burning away his sight…

But that consideration left him as he put his foot on the first rung of the ladder.

He had to get out.  Something within him knew that staying in that tunnel was a bad thing, dangerous in ways that he should have understood but the recognition would not rise out of the black lake of his injured mind.  His ears were echoing in the silence, and he couldn’t decide if that quiet was natural or if the tunnel was holding its breath, waiting for something to emerge from the total darkness.

The closer he moved to the light, the heavier his head became.  The urge to go back down almost overpowered him once, but that vanished back into the depths of his consciousness, pushed there by the irritant music that wanted him to go higher.  The light grew brighter as he approached the top of the ladder, beaming down upon him from several small holes in the ceiling…

No, it was a metal barrier of some kind.

And, suddenly, panic overwhelmed him.

He could feel his heartbeat grown louder in his ears and his breathing became shorter as he slammed one hand into the metal above him.  He had to get out…he couldn’t stay within the darkness; both the one in the tunnel and the one within his mind, drowning him in cold inkiness that wasn’t natural and he had to get out…

His fist pounded against the ridged metal, and it moved slightly.

Relief flooded over the panic as he realised he wasn’t trapped, that he could escape, and maybe once in the overbright light he could regain some part of himself that was missing, lost within whatever had attacked him and had hurt his thoughts and memories…

_Remember…_

The panic swamped him once more, and he pushed against the metal above him.  A loud noise assaulted his ears as the metal moved, a loud screeching that had him flinching away even as his body demanded that he get out and into the light.

The metal flipped up under his physical assault, landing with a clang as he sprang out of the hole that was revealed.  He blinked furiously as his eyes tried to adjust; kneeling on the ground, he breathed deeply, the panic subsiding just a bit.

He felt far too exposed.  He needed to move, to find a place where he would be safe from the light and from something he hadn’t a clue about.  Would his enemy come looking for him?  And yes, there was an enemy, of that he was certain; a danger he should be fighting but was far too afraid.  He didn’t even know what this was, this…whatever it was, that had hurt him.  It was lost in the blackness and the discordant inner music and the terror of what had been done to him…

There was a sudden squealing, accompanied by a strident sound that he thought he should recognise but didn’t.  He couldn’t see properly; there was only a reddish blur that seemed to come closer, and he scrambled backward, away from whatever it was that was closing in on him.

His hands slammed into something hard, and he nearly tipped over before his body seemed to adjust on its own.  His rump landed on whatever it was, and he was moving back, unable to make out much and not paying attention to where he was going.  He only knew he had to get away from the noise and the sound and the light that exposed him to danger that he could not identify. 

Other sounds accompanied his escape; somewhere in his mind he knew they were words, but he couldn’t understand them.  They were a language he should be able to translate, and perhaps he would have once before his thoughts had gone dark, and all he could do was twist out of the way from the tall creatures that flowed around him; they were people, but he couldn’t see them properly, like ghosts floating around him and attempting to drag him down with horrible, cold fingers. 

His heart raced, and his pulse thumped in his ears and in the eyes that were betraying him, colouring what small bit of vision he had in shades of red and grey.  He couldn’t trust these strangers, whoever they were; they could alert his enemy, and he didn’t want to go back to that dark room with the odd things in it where he should have been safe but that safety had been perverted by whoever it had been to destroy his mind…

Somehow he managed to retreat somewhere cool and dark, between two walls that were of yet another strange material that was like stone, but wasn’t.  His back slammed into a metallic object, and it was all he could do to pull his knees up to his chest and wrap his arms about his knees, making himself as small as possible.  He had to stay hidden, and safe, and to keep the enemy from finding him. 

He had no idea how long he sat there, letting the blackness within crest over his already agonised and battered thoughts.  The thundering of his heartbeat drowned out all sounds, including the tiny whimpers he knew he was making but couldn’t stop.  It was all too much, he couldn’t handle whatever was around him, it all threatened to drive him deeper into his damaged mind where he could hide from whatever was around him, despite that horrific music urging him to get up and run.  He just couldn’t do it.  Movement was beyond him. 

All he could do was curl up and await for whatever was next in store.

It was a gentle touch that aroused him from the fugue state he’d fallen into as he awaited his doom.

He jerked away, his head snapping upward to see what had approached him.  His eyes betrayed him once more; and he hissed sharply, clutching his knees tighter to his chest and the thought that this was the end, that his enemy had found him, floated through him and then vanished along with the rest of his cognisance.

However…

Whoever it was standing over him _glowed_.

It was warm, and friendly, and he felt he should know this power but once again his memory failed him as it had since he’d awakened back in wherever he’d been imprisoned.  He wanted to bask in that light and warmth, to let it flow over him and trust it to protect him.  He had no idea what it was, and it didn’t matter.  Something deep within him, past the blackness in his head, called out to that fiery light, and he longed to low but he felt far too weak to even move. 

There were words.  Caring words, even if he couldn’t understand them, the tone sure and sweet and strong.  A shadow reached out, and he thought this must be a hand, glowing as the rest of this being was, and he _trusted_ it because the awful music within him changed, going softer and actually becoming soothing instead of terrifying. 

He reached out and touched that hand.  It was cool and he suddenly felt calm.

He felt _safe_.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

**_13 September 2008_ **

****

 

Kathy Swanson sighed, leaning back in her chair just enough to cause her vertebrae to crack rather loudly.

She was exhausted. 

It wasn’t just work.  It was her personal life as well.  It had been two days ago that her fiancée, Toshiko, had said she’d be back from Geneva, where she’d gone on behalf of Torchwood to investigate something she hadn’t had time to explain before being whisked off to Cardiff International to catch her flight, along with Ianto Jones and Patrick Delaware.

It had been two days since she’d last heard from Toshiko.

Kathy just didn’t sleep well when Toshiko wasn’t with her.  But this was worse; it was as if she’d vanished without a trace, not answering her mobile or coming home as she’d promised.  To be honest, she was scared out of her wits, but then Toshiko worked a far more dangerous job than Kathy did.  That knowledge though did nothing to even prepare her for the silence.

Of course, Toshiko could have spent the last couple of nights at her old flat.  Kathy knew about the five-year contract her lover had with Torchwood; about UNIT, and how Harkness and Jones had made a deal with the devil in order to get her Toshiko out of an imprisonment she hadn’t deserved.  One of those conditions was that Toshiko had to have bills and such in her name, proving that she was in Cardiff, and her flat had been one of those proofs.  When the contract ran out in November, she’d planned on giving up the place and moving in with Kathy, but she still spent most of her nights at Kathy’s place.  And, since her flat was closer to the Hub than Kathy’s, it made some sort of sense that, if Torchwood was busy, Toshiko would stay there or even at the Hub.  

It was the lack of any sort of contact that was eating her alive.  Her fiancée had never once not called or at least emailed if she wasn’t coming home, and there was a tiny, almost silent voice in her head that made her wonder if there was something else going on; something to do with Kathy herself...

Kathy shook her head, dismissing it.  She really should just go down to Mermaid Quay and demand to see Toshiko.  It wasn’t as if she didn’t have an open invitation to visit anytime she wished.  And it beat putting out an all-call for Toshiko’s car or staking out the old flat.

But there was something about doing that…it rubbed her the wrong way, as if she didn’t trust her own fiancée to take care of herself.  Kathy knew damned well that Toshiko was one of the toughest women she’d ever met, and that was one of the many things she loved about her.  She didn’t want to tread on her toes just because she hadn’t heard from her in a couple of days.  Plus, her team would always have her back, especially Jones.

Still, maybe Kathy could take some time off for lunch and see if Toshiko wanted to join her…

“The last time I saw a face that long,” her partner, DC Andy Davidson, said as he leaned against the office door jamb, “my niece’s rabbit just died.”

Kathy gave him her best glare.  “I hope you don’t mean that in the proverbial sense.”

Andy chuckled.  “No, it was an actual rabbit.  She called him ‘Mister Miggles’.  Never knew where she’d gotten that name from.”  He stopped laughing, his jovial face turning serious.  “You really should just go down to the Hub and drag your girlfriend out of there if you’re so worried.”  He entered fully, shutting the door behind him and taking up space in the chair across from her desk.

“Yeah, I know,” she sighed.  “I’m gonna surprise her for lunch.” 

“Good idea, boss.  I’m getting heartily tired of your moping.  You’re snapping at the PC’s and you know how much I don’t like babysitting the baby bobbies if you make them wet themselves.”

She snorted.  “It wasn’t all that long ago you were one of those ‘baby bobbies’, Davidson.”

He rolled his eyes.  “That’s what you say.”

It was true; Andy had been her partner and protégé for barely four months, but he’d been an experienced beat copper for three years before that.  Nearly acing the detective’s exam had only cemented her determination to take him on, and she hadn’t been disappointed. 

“Still,” Andy went on, “it really is weird that she didn’t call, and you can’t get in touch with anyone at the Hub…”

It really was.  Kathy had always taken having Ianto Jones on speed dial for granted, and it felt wrong that even he wasn’t answering any of her calls.  Whatever it was, it must have been really big to distract all of Torchwood.

She absently rubbed at her wrist.  It had been aching since yesterday, but it was easy to ignore in her worry for Toshiko and Jones.  And, the rest of the team as well, but if she was honest with herself those were the two she was most concerned about.  Of course, Toshiko was her heart, but Jones was her best friend, and had been long before she’d been let into the crazy world of dragons and magic. 

“Is it supposed to do that?” Andy asked curiously.

Kathy looked at him, letting her confusion show.  “Is what supposed to do what?”

Andy nodded toward her hand.  “Your dragon mark.  Is it supposed to glow like that?”

Surprised, Kathy glanced down at the wrist that she’d been rubbing.  Her eyebrows went up as she noticed that the dragon ‘tattoo’ that marked her as the Dragon Friend of Fire was, indeed, glowing softly.  “What the hell?” she muttered, pushing her jacket’s sleeve up higher in order to get a better look at it.  It hadn’t been doing that this morning when she’d showered and dressed; this was something new.

“I take it it’s not supposed to do that then?” Andy commented mildly.  

He’d really accepted the truth of magic fairly well, she thought vaguely as she stroked the red and gold dragon that everyone else took as a particularly intricate tattoo.  It didn’t feel any different, and yet it was obviously reacting to _something_. 

Kathy closed her eyes.  This had never happened before, and she had to know why, and what was going on.  It had to be the Fire Dragon trying to tell her something, but Kathy was well aware that, with magic fading from the world, that the Dragons weren’t simply as strong as they had once been and that it took a lot of energy for them to completely come into being this far from Ddraig Llyn, and she was far enough away from the Hub that her Dragon Friend couldn’t simply use the energy of the Rift to help.  She had to try to figure that out, and to do that she needed to reach out to the one person she knew who had all that sort of information at her beck and call.

“Close the blinds,” she ordered quietly.

Kathy heard Andy do as she bid, the rattle of the blinds loud within the silence of her office as he twisted them shut so no one out in the outer area could see inside her office.  Beyond the door she could make out the sounds of the working CID, but she ignored it.  “Can you keep a lookout?  Make sure I’m not disturbed?”

“You got it, boss.”  Andy’s voice was hushed, but she could tell he was intrigued by what was happening.

She was grateful for that, and yet one more time she was very glad that she’d taken him as her partner.  He’d proved himself over and over again, by accepting the strangeness of her life and of that of her fiancée and friend.  But then, the Davidson family was old Cardiff, and he’d probably suspected more about Torchwood than Kathy had even known after her transfer from Newport.

Kathy took out her mobile, scanning through the contacts until she found the one she wanted.  It rang four times before it was answered.  _“Kathy!”_ the bubbly voice of Rhiannon Jones-Davies exclaimed happily.  _“It’s been too long!”_

She put her phone on speaker, setting it down on her desk.  She didn’t care if Andy overheard; he’d keep whatever he learned a secret.  “Yeah, I know,” she admitted, “and I hate to call when I need something…”

_“What’s going on?”_ her fellow Dragon Friend asked, her voice turning completely serious.

Rhiannon had grown up knowing Ianto Jones, and had been the Friend of Water for as long as she could remember.  It made her the perfect person for Kathy to turn to.

And so, she explained everything.

Kathy didn’t leave anything out; about Toshiko and Ianto – and the entire Torchwood team – going incommunicado for the last couple of days, her worry about them, and finally about her dragon mark glowing.  “And I don’t know what that means,” she finished, sounding plaintive…but then, what made Kathy one of the best detectives at Cardiff CID was the fact that she hated being in the dark about anything, and would go after answers like a terrier after a rodent.

There was silence on the other end, and then she heard Rhiannon shout for her husband.  _“I can’t see my mark that easily,”_ she replied.   _“I wanna see if I have the same problem as you do…”_

Kathy knew that Rhiannon’s mark was on her hip, just out of sight.  Only she and Alice had visible marks, the Friend of Air’s being on her ankle.  Toshiko’s was on her shoulder, and Kathy knew for a fact that her lover’s was extremely sensitive…

No, she needed to concentrate.

She could make out Rhiannon and Johnny Davies talking; she must have also put her phone on speaker.  Johnny was complaining about being interrupted, and Rhiannon was scoffing about him being busy.  It put a smile on Kathy’s face; those two were always bickering, Rhiannon teasing Johnny about being a lazy git and Johnny harping on Rhiannon’s bossy nature.

_“Bloody hell, Rhi,”_ she heard Johnny shout. 

_“I think that means mine’s glowing as well,”_ Rhiannon growled.  _“Let me see if I can get the Dragons out of the lake and talking, and I’ll call you back.”_

Kathy acknowledged her, and then rang off.  Her eyes met Andy’s, and she could tell her partner was as bothered as she was.  “I don’t pretend to know much about magic and shit like that, but boss…that can’t be good.”

She had to agree.  Kathy chewed her lip for a second, and then reached for her mobile once more, knowing that Rhiannon would be at least a few minutes before calling back.  She had to check in with Alice, even though she was certain she’d discover the same thing…

_“Is something wrong?”_ was Alice’s first question as she answered.

“I think so.”  Kathy flinched slightly.  It was telling that Alice’s first thought when she phoned was that there was a problem.  She’d have to keep in closer contact with her fellow Dragon Friends.  “I have to ask first: is your dragon mark glowing?”

Alice didn’t say anything, but Kathy could hear her rustling around, and the detective knew she had to have been checking.  _“What’s going on?”_ Alice demanded.

Kathy sighed; she took that as confirmation.  “When was the last time you talked to either Harkness or Jones?”

She could practically feel the irritation over the open line, and it was at times such as this Kathy wondered why Alice wasn’t the Dragon Friend of Fire, because of her sometimes fiery temper, especially where her family was concerned.  Still, she answered, _“Dad was over for dinner the night Ianto left for Geneva.  I could tell he was bothered by Ianto leaving…Kathy, if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on, I’m coming down there and it won’t be pretty.”_

Past the anger, Kathy could hear the stirrings of worry.  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly.  “But I can’t get a hold of anyone at Torchwood, and Toshiko hasn’t called me since she, Jones, and Delaware got back from Geneva.”

There was silence, and then Alice said, _“I’m going to the Hub.”_

Kathy was well aware of just how much Alice disliked Torchwood.  So, for her to say she was willing to go there, she had to have been scared.  “No, not yet.  We don’t know what’s going on, and you could walk into something you wouldn’t be prepared for.  Both of your dads would kill me if I let you do that.  Besides, I would’ve done that anyway if I thought it would do any good.”

The sigh of frustration made Kathy aware that Alice was listening to her.  “I have a call out to Rhiannon,” Kathy went on.  “I can’t help but feel the marks and what’s going on at Torchwood are connected, though.”  It only made sense; the team goes out of contact, and the marks start glowing.

_“Call me as soon as you know anything,”_ Alice demanded.  _“I mean it, Kathy…I want to know what’s going on at the Hub.  I can’t…”_ her voice lost all of its sharpness.  _“I need to know about my dads.”_

“I understand, believe me,” she sighed.  She could totally get behind Alice’s worry.  “Let me hang up so I can be available for Rhiannon.  She’s going to see about talking to the Great Dragons.”

_“Alright.  Call me.”_

Kathy assured her she would, and then disconnected.  She lay the phone down on her blotter, rubbing her forehead tiredly.  “This is not going to be good,” she commented, looking her silent partner in the eye.  She could see in them that Andy knew the same thing.

“We’re gonna have to beard Torchwood in its lair at some point,” Andy said bluntly. 

“Yeah, I know.  But I want as much information as I can get before we do.  The Hub is gonna be well defended…and that just takes Delaware into consideration.  The others are tough to beat, but he’ll have the firepower to stop anyone coming in uninvited.  Plus, we don’t even know what we’re dealing with –“

Her phone rang, interrupting that thought.  Kathy punched the connect button just a bit harder than was necessary when she saw it was from Rhiannon.  “What did you find out?”

_“It’s not good,”_ Rhiannon answered.  _“I managed to call up the Water Dragon, and he said that the Earth Dragon…he’s gone.”_

Kathy stopped breathing.  For something to have happened to the Earth Dragon…it was impossible.  “Did he have any idea…?”

_“You need to find Ianto,”_ Rhiannon said.  _“He’s the keystone.”_

“So I need to get into the Hub.”  It wasn’t what she wanted; to go in blind, because whatever was cutting the team off from the rest of the world had to be dangerous to have gotten past Harkness, Jones, and Delaware.

This wasn’t something Kathy was prepared for.  It was one thing to be Torchwood’s police liaison and understand what they went through; it was another to walk into a situation that she certainly didn’t have a clue about and had no training for.  She was beginning to wish she’d taken Harkness up on his offer for more training than just in weapons.

_“No,”_ Rhiannon denied.  _“The Water Dragon says to follow your dragon mark, that Ianto…there’s something wrong with him.”_

“Did he say what?”

_“No, he didn’t know.  But whatever it was, it’s done something to the Earth Dragon as well, which means Tosh doesn’t have access to him either.”_

That made sense.  Jones and Earth Dragon had always had a very close connection; from what she’d understood, it had gone back at least 1600 years. “Follow my dragon mark?” Kathy snarked.  “Could he be any more cryptic?”

Rhiannon barked a laugh.  _“You have no real idea.”_

“And just how am I supposed to do that?  Stand on the roof and turn in a circle to see if it glows brighter in a certain direction?”

This time Rhiannon’s laugh was lighter.  _“Nope.  It’s more like meditation.  Find the place where the Fire Dragon’s power connects to your mark, and the magic will do the rest. The Fire Dragon might help as well, but with the Earth Dragon missing the other three Dragons are unbalanced, and that’s throwing their power off even more.”_

Kathy was uncertain that would work, but she’d give it her best.  “Stay on the line while I try this?” she requested, unable to stop herself from not sounding her usual, sure self.

_“You know I will.”_

She glanced up at Andy; her partner was standing quietly by the door, and he nodded once to show his support.  Kathy took a deep breath, closing her eyes in order to attempt to relax.

It wasn’t as if she was completely unfamiliar with meditation.  One of the department-approved psychologists had suggested it after an arrest had gone bad several years ago, and Kathy hadn’t been handling it well.  It had worked in a way, letting her relax instead of suffering from some of the more horrible nightmares that had come from that shitstorm.  It had made accepting a gun from Harkness all that much easier.

Kathy had no idea how this was supposed to work, but she took several more deep breaths to clear her mind, and then relaxed as much as she could while sitting in her desk chair.  The thing was she just wasn’t the mystic kind.  Toshiko was; she’d often say things like being able to feel the living Earth under her feet, and it amazed her that someone so grounded in science and technology could embrace magic so easily. 

But Kathy…she was, of course, the Friend of Fire, but she’d never completely been that comfortable with all the mumbo-jumbo that went with it.  She’d mainly accepted the mark because of her friendship with Ianto Jones, and she hadn’t looked back once she’d learned of his true nature.  Still, there was something slightly detached about the whole situation, and Kathy always believed it had more to do with her training than any sort of personal preference.

Still, she had to try. 

The only sound in the office was the inhalations she was taken; even the noises outside the office seemed diminished.  Kathy slumped down into the chair, her hands resting loosely on her blotter, and eventually even those sensations ceased to have any meaning.

She felt herself falling into the darkness.

Before she could react to that swooping sensation, there was a sudden flickering light behind her eyelids.  It was tiny, like a will-o’-the-wisp in the moonless black of the night, and it darted and weaved, faded and grew, drawing Kathy’s undivided attention as if she was a moth and it was the flame she desperately needed to reach.

Within the darkness Kathy knew this was the Fire Dragon, urging her on.  The flame was weak, but it was there, and despite having gotten herself into a trance of some sort she could feel the sensation of warmth against her fingertips and eyelids and deep within her heart as if a flame had taken up residence there.

Kathy had no idea how long her mind followed the Dragon, but suddenly the friendly flicker was gone, leaving her deep within the shadowless dark.  She could feel herself panicking and tried to pull back, but with a near-physical jerk she felt her mind slam into something hard, and even blacker than death.

The scent of decay and dirt clogged her nostrils, and Kathy floundered against the invisible barrier that had stopped her in her metaphysical tracks. 

But then, the light returned, not as strong as before but enough to illuminate what was keeping her from moving forward: a wall, made of dirt and roots and crawling things that should have been disgusting but really weren’t, being of nature and belonging within the Earth. 

She noticed that the wall was moving.

No…it was breathing.

Kathy was before the Dragon of Earth.

Something was wrong, however.

The soil of the Dragon’s body should have smelled clean, but there was something off about it that she couldn’t place.  The roots of those unknown plants were dry, like skeletal, grasping fingers that clutched at the dirt in spasms of horror.  And the creatures that lived within were desiccated husks of insects that should not have been alive, rustling like mummified hands rubbing together in the depths of their tomb.

Kathy’s thoughts jerked away from what she was being shown.  The Earth Dragon’s body shivered, twisted in a way it shouldn’t, and she could suddenly feel agonising pain; it was outside herself and within herself and she shied away from it…

…and came back to her body, staring up at Andy’s concerned face as he stood over her, his hands on her shoulders, shaking her lightly.  She whooped in a huge breath, sitting up slightly and nodding her head, letting her partner know that she was alright.

Andy released her, taking position back at the closed door, his eyes darting anywhere but her.  “You had me worried there for a sec, boss.”

“Sorry,” she gasped, getting her breath under control.

_“What did you see?”_ Rhiannon asked.  She sounded somewhat panicked, and she hadn’t even seen what Kathy had.  It made her wonder if she’d said something while she’d been under, or if Andy had been reporting to Rhiannon as Kathy had travelled.

Frowning, Kathy answered, “I saw the Earth Dragon.  There’s something wrong with him…I don’t know what, but if I had to guess I’d say he was sick or something.”

There was a sort of horrified silence for a moment, and then Rhiannon added, _“And Ianto?”_

She paused for a few seconds, gathering her thoughts about her.  Kathy hadn’t actually felt or seen Jones, but there was something… “I…don’t know.  But I think he’s with the Earth Dragon.  There was pain…but I don’t think the Earth Dragon was the one feeling it.”  She shook her head, not paying attention to the fact that Rhiannon wouldn’t be able to see the gesture, and slumped back in her seat, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she considered what she’d witnessed.  “There was…this smell.  I know it, I’ve smelled it before…like something’d gone off.  Trash, or sewage…it wasn’t what I’d equate with the Earth Dragon.”

“Maybe this is a leap,” Andy said slowly, “but maybe Jones was in the sewers?  Torchwood says those Weevil things live down there.  Could he have gotten hurt down in the sewer chasing one of them?”

Kathy chewed her lip as she considered that notion.  It did make sense; she’d met the one Weevil that Torchwood was taking care of, and she could very easily imagine a creature like that taking a chunk out of anyone.  But Ianto Jones?

“I think that’s close,” she conceded.  “But I don’t believe Jones wasn’t injured by one.  It would take a hell of a lot of bite force to penetrate his tough hide, and I’m pretty certain a Weevil wouldn’t be able to do it.”

_“Then what?”_ Rhiannon demanded.  _“What could have happened?”_

“We need to find Jones,” Kathy deflected, mainly because she didn’t know. 

“You got any ideas on that score?” Andy inquired. 

“I think your sewer idea is our best bet –“

Her office line rang.

Cursing, she picked up the handset.  She couldn’t _not_ answer; she was still on duty.  “Swanson,” she snapped, letting her frustration with the situation show in her voice.

_“We got a funny report of some guy popping up out of the sewers down off Bute Street by the Post Office,”_ it was the voice of the desk sergeant, not sounding at all put out over Kathy’s tone. 

Kathy stilled, her heart suddenly thumping hard, her instinct telling her that this was the clue she’d been needing.  “Anything else?” she asked, dialling back the irritation.

_“Nothing much,”_ the sergeant answered.  _“But we don’t get a lot people just jumping out into traffic from the manhole there.  The caller reported that whoever it was had escaped back into an alley, and no one goes into the sewers voluntarily.”_

That was the honest to God truth.  Anyone who’d lived in Cardiff for any length of time was well aware of the dangers underground, even if they’d never heard of Weevils.  The sewer workers themselves received hazard pay.  Only Torchwood went willingly. “Davidson and I will head out there,” she said.  “It might not be anything…”

_“But it sure sounds weird.  Like something up Torchwood’s jurisdiction.”_

“That it does.”  She thanked the desk sergeant then hung up. “I think we might have just found Jones.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry about the delay! Apparently I was ill for months, and it took me getting admitted to the hospital to really bring everything into focus. I'm now out and on medication (for hypertension and fluid retention) and have lost nearly seventy pounds (all of it liquid) and I'm feeling better than I have in a really long time. The muses have apparently come back as well, thank goodness. This chapter practically wrote itself, and I hope it's worth the wait.

 

**_13 September 2008_ **

 

Alice slammed her car door shut just a bit harder than was necessary, but she was too worried to care about doing any damage to it.

When Kathy had made that first phone call to her, Alice had been prepared to storm the Torchwood Hub in order to find out what was going on with her Dad and Ianto, who she thought more and more of as a second father the longer she knew him. She was calling him Tad almost exclusively now, despite her original determination to call him Ianto while he was in his human form. For some reason it felt less and less strange as time went on to consider him as her Tad, and the thought that she had two such caring people in her life warmed her in ways she’d never even believed in before.

She’d seen them both through that Year with the Toclafane, and that was when Alice realised that she’d move Heaven, Hell, and everything in between to keep them safe.

The second call though…that had chilled her. Kathy hadn’t said much, only that she’d found Ianto, but the tone of her words has sent a shiver through her as if the air around her had suddenly become winter-cold, heavy with dread and expectation. Something had been wrong; horribly wrong, and Kathy hadn’t had to say anything in order for Alice to realise it. All she’d said was to come to Estelle’s house; that it seemed the safest place to go after what she’d discovered.

Alice stormed toward the front door to the small house, fear and worry settling in firmly around her heart and making her stomach roil nauseously in response. She’d left work immediately after Kathy’s call, giving some sort of half-baked excuse for taking off on her boss halfway through the work day. Alice really had no idea what she’d said as she’d practically run out of the office, but it hadn’t mattered. Her family needed her; that was all that was important.

Her hands were trembling as she reached up to knock, so it was a good thing that Kathy’s partner, Andy Davidson, opened the door for her. She tried to smile at him, but knew it had failed when the constable’s hand rested on her shoulder in comfort as she brushed past him. Davidson didn’t say anything, letting her make her way into the lounge beyond, barely registering the slightly old-fashioned décor to fasten her gaze on Kathy, who was sitting on the sofa, her dark skin slightly pale in the sunlight that streamed in through the small crack between the drawn curtains.

Kathy stood, even as Estelle rose from her own chair to greet Alice, her face worried as she reached out to Alice. “Maybe you can get through to him,” the elderly witch said, taking Alice’s hands in her own.

“What’s going on?” Alice demanded, letting Estelle hold onto her even as she grasped back, her heart hammering so hard she could hardly breathe properly. Something was wrong with her Tad…not that she hadn’t expected that, but Estelle’s eyes told her it was something bad; something beyond what any of them had ever seen or dealt with. “Where is he? What happened? Where’s Dad?”

That was the question. If Ianto was sick or something worse, her Dad would have done the impossible in order to be by his side. Jack Harkness was devoted to his mate, and if he wasn’t there…

“We don’t know anything about Jack,” Estelle admitted. Her lined face was stricken, and Alice knew that the witch loved her father deeply, even though it had been decades since she and Jack had had their time. “Kathy found Ianto…”

She turned to the detective. “Yeah,” Kathy answered. She would have appeared calm, but the slight wringing of her hands as they rested in her lap was a dead giveaway. “Davidson and I found him in an alley. He must have come up through the sewers from the Hub and ended up there. He was…” she swallowed, “he wasn’t himself. He didn’t recognise either of us. But…I don’t know, something must’ve told him we were safe, because he did come with us. This was the best and safest place I could think of to bring him.”

Once again the urge to go to the Torchwood Hub became almost overwhelming, but Alice strangled it viciously. If her Tad had come from there… “Where is he?” he asked again.

Estelle tugged her forward, around the sofa. It was then that Alice noticed that the back of the sofa had been pulled away from the wall slightly, leaving a cubby behind it. Tucked into that cubby, leaning against the wall, was her Tad.

Alice gasped. She couldn’t help it.

Ianto was curled up as small as possible, his knees to his chest, one arm around his legs and the other rubbing Moses, who was tucked up over his feet, the sound of the cat’s purring almost frantic in the small space. Ianto’s head was leaning against his knees, eyes closed, so still that if only for the movement of his hand over Moses’ fur Alice would have thought he was a statue.

His clothes were a disaster, from what Alice could make out. He wasn’t wearing any shoes or socks, his feet white against the carpet and the cat familiar’s dark fur. “We took them off,” Estelle murmured, as if reading Alice’s mind. “He’d been through the sewers and we were afraid he’d catch his death if he stayed in them; they were soaked. We couldn’t get him out of those filthy clothes, though. He fought us too much and we didn’t want to hurt him anymore than he’d already been.”

Alice nodded absently as she took in the rest of her Tad’s appearance. He wasn’t wearing his usual Torchwood attire; his torn jeans and sweater had her believing that he must have gone to the Hub directly from the airport, which meant whatever had occurred had been on the night he and the others had come back from Geneva. She wondered if Toshiko and their other team member, Patrick, were in any better condition, and if they were even at the Hub.

Or if they were even alive.

She shivered violently, and Estelle wrapped an arm around her shoulders in a tight hug. Alice wanted to relax back into her hold, but she couldn’t. Not yet.

Instead, she crouched down in front of her Tad, reaching out a hand but stopping just from touching him. Moses glanced up at her, his yellow eyes intelligent and if a cat could communicate, he was asking for her help. Then he curled up tighter against Ianto’s legs, the purring even louder as if that very noise would bring him back from wherever he’d faded off to.

Alice had to swallow twice before she could get anything out. “Tad?” she whispered, the awful need to pull him into her arms and rock him against her rolling over her like an inexorable tide.

And yet, something was holding her back. Her Tad was at his lowest; there was no doubt of that, but there was a tension in his body that communicated to her that he wasn’t ready for contact, that she needed to keep her distance if just for a short while longer.

It was a fight, though. Everything in her wanted to tuck him up and simply hold him, to whisper to him that everything was going to be alright, that he didn’t need to hide because she was there to protect him. The problem was she couldn’t keep up any of that sort of bargain. She had no idea what was going on within the Torchwood Hub; what had happened to Jack and the rest of the small family that Ianto and her Dad had gathered together.

Of course, Alice wasn’t concerned that her Dad was dead…but there were worse things than dying when that person was Jack Harkness. That scared her more than anything.

“Tad?” she said again, this time just a bit louder.

Ianto twitched.

It was barely there, but her Tad had reacted to her.

The relief that ripped through her left her weak and breathless. “Tad,” Alice murmured, her hand reaching out just that little bit more, touching the hand that was stroking Moses.

Ianto’s head darted up, and Alice couldn’t help the whimper that escaped her as his eyes met hers.

Her Tad’s eyes were blue, of a shade slightly different from her Dad’s. They were always kindly when they looked at Alice, the joy in them from her acceptance of him and his place in Jack’s life reflecting in them as well as his own paternal feelings toward her. Alice loved Ianto’s eyes, because the expressions in them always made her feel cherished.

That wasn’t to say that he couldn’t be harsh, his eyes as cold as a glacier and as implacable as the sea. Ianto Jones was a dragon, and that meant he took his responsibilities far more seriously than the majority of humans would, and that reflected in how he gazed at those who stood against him in whatever cause he’d taken up. Anyone who found themselves on the wrong side of the dragon didn’t stand a chance to win.

This, though…this wasn’t right.

The normal colour of Ianto’s eyes had changed. To Alice’s horror, that blue had completely disappeared, replaced by a brown so dark it could have been black, subsuming even the whites. _Something_ _horrible_ moved within that gaze, shadows that had no place within those eyes that could laugh with unbridled joy or weep at the injustice of the world. For the first time since she’d met him, Alice thought of Ianto as _inhuman_ , and it was all she could do not to recoil from the darkness she was seeing.

This wasn’t her Tad.

And yet, it was. She _knew_ it was, despite whatever had possessed him. This was Ianto Jones, the dragon, her Dad’s mate and saviour, Steven’s beloved Grandtad and her own wonderful Tad despite there not being any sort of blood tie to connect them. Blood wasn’t all that important when someone loved a person without any sort of hesitation or expectation.

Smoke darker than black swirled through Ianto’s eyes and Alice met his gaze despite her first impulse to flinch away. Her hand spasmed, clutching onto Ianto’s cold – unnaturally cold! – fingers, suddenly not wanting to let go. No…she couldn’t let go, not if her life depended on it. Alice needed to save him, to bring back the bright and beautiful Tad who had captured her heart despite her initial resistance to the idea of her Dad being able to love anyone that completely.

“Hey,” she tried to keep her tone light, but with those hideous eyes staring at her it was almost too difficult. Still, Alice knew she had to try. “Remember me –?”

Alice didn’t have time to even react before she was flat on her arse, Moses’ yowl of pain ringing in her ears as her Tad’s legs kicked out, the cat flying through the air at the force of that sudden movement. Ianto had begun flailing violently and it was all Alice could do to scramble backward out of reach, wanting nothing more than to calm him but not knowing what she’d done to create such a response.

She heard cursing behind her, but it was drowned out by such a cry of pain and rage that Alice’s heart lurched in her chest and she clutched at her chest spasmodically. Ianto’s mouth was wide open, and that terrible noise was coming from him as if it were being torn from his throat against his very will. She wanted nothing more than to clamp her hands over her ears to block it out but was physically unable to, so terrified by the sound her Tad was making that she was frozen to the spot.

“Jones!” Kathy shouted. Alice glanced up and saw the copper leaning over the back to the sofa, her hands digging into the fabric hard enough that she was surprised it wasn’t tearing under the pressure. “What the hell?”  

“One side,” Andy Davidson said, stepping around Alice from her position on the floor and flinging himself at the wildly flailing dragon, wrapping both arms around Ianto as if he thought he could pin him down. “It’s alright, mate,” he spoke soothingly over the horrific noise, “you’re safe now. No one’s gonna hurt you –“

Alice ignored the rest of what Andy was saying, only knowing that she had to help calm her Tad down. She got to her knees and joined Davidson in attempting to restrain Ianto, leaning over the detective constable to exclaim, “It’s okay, Tad! Trust me, we’re only here to help you!”

She didn’t know if her words were getting through her Tad’s sheer panic, or if he could even understand her. Because that was what it was, and something she’d said or done must have prompted it.

Alice kept calling out to him, reassuring him as Andy practically sat on him, keeping his arms and legs from flying out and doing any damage. At some point she felt someone else join the pile, leaning over her and helping Davidson keep things slightly better under control.

Eventually though, Ianto calmed down, his cries fading into soft whimpers as his limbs slowly ceased their writhing. Alice’s heart was hammering fit to burst as she crawled away, standing as both Kathy and Andy climbed off her Tad. Ianto simply lay there, curling himself up in a ball, tiny, distressed noises slipping past his parted lips as he panted for breath.

“What the hell was that?” Kathy gasped, leaning over with her hands on her knees. “What did you do, Alice?”

“I didn’t…” Alice wiped a hand across her face, noticing then that there were tears on her cheeks and unsurprised by their presence. She hated seeing her Tad in that much distress, even if she had no clue what was had actually caused it.

“She didn’t do anything,” Estelle answered.

Alice glanced at her. She was clutching Moses close to her chest, the cat’s tail stiffened and bristling, teeth bared in a snarl. He didn’t seem to be upset at Ianto though; the familiar’s glaring was in Kathy’s direction, as if taking offence on Alice’s behalf at the copper’s accusation.

“Is Moses okay?” she asked, concerned for the cat’s wellbeing.

“He’s fine,” the witch replied, one hand stroking Moses’ fur down flat. “He wasn’t hurt.”

“What do you mean?” Kathy demanded, moving around the sofa and taking a seat on it, brushing several of her tiny braids out of her eyes from where they’d come loose from the ponytail she had them pulled back into. Andy followed her, taking up a standing position just at the arm of the sofa, a red mark high on his cheek that was going to become a remarkable looking shiner in a couple of hours. He must have noticed Alice looking, because he smiled slightly and nodded, silently acknowledging that he was just fine after his unexpected tussle.

“It wasn’t anything Alice did,” Estelle repeated. Moses wriggled and she set him down, and the cat went back to Ianto, crawling up onto his side and rubbing his face against the dragon’s cheek, back to purring as if hoping to calm him down even further. “I think it was something she said.”

The elderly witch looked around, finally finding what she was searching for: a small pad and a pencil. She picked them up, writing something down quickly then turning the pad around to show them what she’d done.

It was the single word: _remember._

“Ianto reacted to this,” Estelle went on. “I’m not sure why, but this was definitely what made him panic.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Alice demanded. She began to pace, not wanting to get close to her Tad again out of a real fear that she’d set him off once more despite what Estelle said. “His eyes…”

“That’s the first thing Davidson and I noticed when we found him,” Kathy answered, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands. “This is so beyond me…I don’t know what to do. Jones has always been the strong one, the one who got all this mystical bullshit. I might be the Friend of Fire, but that doesn’t mean a thing if I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

Kathy had a point. Alice wrapped her arms around her chest, shaking her head and avoiding even a glance behind the sofa. “Has anyone talked to Rhiannon about this? She’s the expert.” A part of her hated giving up any sort of control over the situation, but Alice knew when she was beaten. “Maybe she knows something about why Tad reacted when I…” she trailed off, not wanting a repeat of what had just occurred.

Estelle sighed. “I have to admit, this is also beyond me. I’ve learned much from the Great Dragons and the local Cardiff coven, but…” She shook her head as she sat back down in her chair. “I’m not so sure the base cause is magical, though. Torchwood doesn’t usually investigate that sort of thing; Ianto usually leaves that up to the coven, once he finally convinced Jack that magic really does exist.”

“Then you’re saying it might be alien-related?” Alice asked.

“It might have started out that way,” Kathy added, “but you can’t tell me what’s happening to Jones right now isn’t a large part mystical.”

“No, I can’t,” Estelle agreed. She glanced at Kathy. “When you tried to locate Ianto magically, what did you see again?”

This was news to Alice. “You tried to find Tad? After you called me the first time?” She couldn’t help sounding slightly accusatory, in that Kathy hadn’t said a thing to her about it.

Kathy nodded. “Rhiannon talked me through trying to use my dragon mark in order to track Jones, and I found the Earth Dragon instead.” The copper exhaled sharply, rubbing her wrist absently. “It was like he was sick or something. Rhiannon claimed that the Water Dragon had told her that the Earth Dragon was gone somehow. And, since Jones and the Dragon have some sort of connection dating back centuries…”

“It makes sense that maybe they were both affected by whatever the hell it was that happened,” Alice finished.

“Which also could mean that, whatever happened to Ianto, also happened to Toshiko,” Kathy finished, shuddering slightly.

That made sense. Alice chewed her lip as she kept pacing, trying to put it all together. The thing was, while she was a bit ahead of Kathy in the magical lessons department – having known the Air Dragon since she’d been a girl – none of that knowledge was helping her fit the pieces into a recognisable picture.

Once again, the urge to go to the Hub was almost strong enough to propel her out of Estelle’s door and to her car. Never mind the danger; Alice _needed_ to know what had happened to her Tad, and what was keeping her Dad from being with his mate during this ‘illness’. That was the unconscionable part of all of this: that Jack Harkness wasn’t there, doing everything and anything possible to help Ianto, to find out how to cure this and to make her Tad whole once more. The only thing that would keep from Ianto’s side was that something had happened to him as well, and was keeping her Dad from being there and from taking care of his mate.

Alice suddenly knew that Kathy had to have been feeling the same, because she didn’t know anything about Toshiko. Somewhere out there was Kathy’s fiancée, and there was no clue as to what had been done to her to keep her from contacting Kathy in any way she could.

She took a seat next to the police officer, reaching over and clasping the detective inspector’s hand. Alice felt the woman stiffen, and then relax into the touch; if there was one thing she’d learned about Kathy Swanson over their time together during that Year, was that she didn’t like accepting comfort, fearing that it made her look weak. Alice could understand that impulse, knowing that Kathy would have had to have worked harder than any other copper in order to achieve her position, with her being a woman. Kathy wouldn’t have been able to appear anything but a professional, and not let her emotions get in the way of her job. It had only been her meeting Toshiko and falling in love with the technician that had helped Kathy get over some of that closed off-ness.

“Rhiannon is on her way.” Estelle added.

“When will she be here?” Alice asked. “Why can’t she just…” She wriggled her fingers, trying to get her message across.

Estelle must have understood, because she smiled. “No teleporting, I’m afraid. With the Earth Dragon missing and magic still fading, there isn’t enough power for the Water Dragon to transport her…not like they did during that Year when you were all needed on board the _Valiant._ She’s having to rely on an automobile to get here.”

Alice nodded, her heart dropping. The longer they have to wait…her mind shied away from that, not wanting to dwell on what she’d seen in her Tad’s eyes.

“In the meantime,” Andy put in, “there are things we could be doing to investigate this more thoroughly.”

That earned him three pairs of eyes looking at him, and to his credit he didn’t flinch from them. “You gonna speak out, Davidson?” Kathy prompted acerbically.

“Sure boss,” he answered, not reacting to her tone one bit, “I think we should be doing a bit of surveillance, that’s all.”

Alice narrowed her eyes, thinking she was understanding him. “Of Torchwood?”

The smile bloomed across his face. “That’s where all this leads back to, doesn’t it?”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about another long wait! I had to hustle to get my Reel Torchwood story done, and that didn't leave me much time to work on this. However, there good news is this story should be about another four chapters, and I'm going to working on this as well as two Dragon Future stories I have planned for NaNo, so updates should come a bit faster. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

 

**_Unknown_ **

****

He was safe.

He didn’t know why he felt that way. 

It had been first the flame, the fierce bright light that had found him after so long in the darkness.  It hadn’t been alone; another light had been there, this one steady as the lit wick of a candle, although that thought wasn’t something that he recognised with his mind aching and dark.  Still, it was almost as comforting and he had trusted in them both, and they had led him away from the stink and the fear that had followed him from his prison.

His eyes wouldn’t track on anything except the brightness of his guardians, and while he could not see he could _feel_ , and the familiarity of the place they had taken him to soothed him like deep stone or dark water, cool air or warm fire.  It was a haven, and he immediately found his place within it, curled up away from the beings there, his guardians and the one who glowed with the colour of the most glorious aurora…but once again, making that connection made it also vanish immediately. 

And the soft thing that made sounds like the rumbling of the mountain, peaceful and soothing, fur delicate under pain-filled hands, the only thing that could lull him past the heaviness in his mind and the dullness of his body and spirit.

Time had no meaning.

Meaning had no time.

One more came, and he barely had sensed them – all cold fierceness and life-giving breath – before the black of his thoughts threatened to overwhelm him once more, that _word_ that had caused his brain to flare into agony and fear and he didn’t want to go back there, not to where the one was, the one who had damaged him and hurt him and had torn away his very being…the malefic music, that had gone very nearly quiet since he’d been taken away, roared to life once more, drowning out everything but the emptiness and the despair and the hideous blackness.

He simply didn’t have the strength to fight any longer.

The fiery one and the steady one protected him, and he wanted to be grateful however he didn’t know what that meant. 

But there was one missing.  He was certain of it, although he had no memory on what to base that certainty on.  The person who should have been the one protecting him, sheltering him from the storm within his own brain.

Something _slithered_ within his head.  It was full of poisoned soil and withered life and it shouldn’t be that way, yet it was.

Words came, and while he didn’t understand them they were calming.  The candle flame it was, quiet and sure, and he let it wash over him, giving him back the strength to relax once more, his eyes turning back to the coldly ferocious one who had said the one thing he couldn’t stand to hear.

He wondered how he’d understood what that was, when he didn’t know anything else.

But that thought vanished as quickly as the others, back into the bubbling tar pit of his mind.

The rumble was a balm to him, and he welcomed it once more, glad he hadn’t damaged it when that word had disturbed him into flailing action.

A word he knew, when he knew no others.

He let the darkness smother him once more.  He was too exhausted for anything else.  There was something within it that called to him, and he didn’t understand past the discordant sound of the music that floated through the _something_ that lived within the darkness.  Was it himself he was feeling?  Or was it a thing he didn’t know, that belonged within the absolute black of his mind?

He couldn’t think.  He couldn’t even consider.

He knew time passed, but it didn’t matter.  Nothing mattered.  The rumbling thing drowned out the awful song, and he was pitifully grateful.  He didn’t want it there.  He wanted to _know_ himself once more, to live in the light that he felt had to be somewhere beyond the dark.

He couldn’t…no, not that word. 

Never that word, ever again.

At some point, yet another showed themselves to his limited consciousness; this one heavy and almost as dark as he was, and yet it was different, like a wave or rain or…he didn’t know.  It was also familiar to him, like the others that stayed with him, even though the flame and the candle were no longer there.  His guardians had left without him, but he didn’t care. 

He was still safe, with the aurora and the cold wind – who stank of fear now, and not…never…malice.  And now there was this new one, one he could drown in and feel peace.

For some reason, they were familiar, like the fire and the candle.  But his damaged mind shied away from the familiarity, and it was lost in the darkness.

Darkness was all he had, all the certainty in his world of blurred lines and foggy movements.  It was the darkness that welcomed him; that covered him in its eternity and kept him from harm.  And yet, it wasn’t right; it shouldn’t be there, and yet he didn’t understand why that was. 

And he wasn’t alone in the darkness; he simply couldn’t put a name to what was there with him.

Still, he let it consume him.  It was all black and cold and calm, and in some ways it soothed him; in other ways, he knew it wasn’t right, that his mind shouldn’t be damaged as it was, that it had to do with that single word he didn’t dare think.

And yet, the deeper he went within the dark and the black…at first, he didn’t notice it, because his inner eyes were just as clouded as his outer ones.  But when he did, that pinprick of light, he couldn’t help but move toward it.

Even as small as it was, it was golden and bright and called to him, illuminating the black and chasing away the _things_ that were keeping him company.  That horrifically discordant music grew within him, but with that light…he didn’t care.  It was comforting and he didn’t want to hurt anymore, and that light was a promise of painlessness and hope that he hadn’t had ever since…he didn’t know how long, because time didn’t matter to him.  Not when he was like this, a creature of the blackness that surrounded him, of the strangeness that smothered him and kept his thoughts from breaking through and helping him understand what had been done to him. 

That beacon summoned him across his agony and fear and need for the dark.  He went to it willingly, even as the noise grew louder, driving deep within his already wounded mind to get him to stop.  It was dangerous, but he didn’t believe that. 

It was the first right thing he could recall believing in.

However, that didn’t mean much in his current state.  He could recall nothing once whatever thought he’d had appeared, vanishing as quickly as smoke in a breeze.

No, not like that. 

Much worse.

The brightness grew closer and closer, and he found his mind reaching toward it eagerly, needing to know what this was that was lighting his perpetual darkness.

But if this was pushing away that darkness, then it was also exposing the festering rot within him.

Grasping tendrils and curling roots and creatures he had no name for surrounded him, trying to pull him back into the dark where he’d been captive for so long.  He fought them, even as the music grew into a deafening shriek that made his brain ring with it.  _No,_ he could almost make out within the terrible sound, _you mustn’t…_

It didn’t matter anymore.  He _needed_ the light, as he needed to breathe and survive and he couldn’t hide any longer.  This bright light called to him, and nothing was going to stop him from gaining it, now that he knew it existed within him.

The dark tried to snuff it out, to hide it from him, but he wasn’t going to let himself go back into that hell.  His body and brain were exhausted by its cloying weight.  He simply couldn’t take his condition any longer.

The need to fight for himself was growing as much as the light was.  He had to reach it, he had to _know_.  What was this, and why was the darkness so afraid that he’d reach it?

The light coiled around him, welcoming him and drawing him away from the black that had haunted him.

The moment he did, he knew he’d made a mistake, although what that was…

He could feel it: his body, tingling as if every limb had fallen asleep while he’d been trapped.  His mouth fell open, and even he didn’t recognise the sounds coming from it…if it was pain or joy or fear, there was no way to know.

All three emotions were clamouring to escape.

And then he began to _change_.

Somewhere in his injured mind he knew those people he should have known were yelling and shouting, but the words were unknown.  He was being touched, dragged bodily away out of his safe place, and he tried to fight but there was something entangling him and he could do nothing but let himself be taken away, to someplace he didn’t know but was wide and open and it frightened him not to be in his cramped space anymore.

That fear was very quickly replaced by something far stronger and worse, feelings he could not describe even if he wanted to.

The very bones within him were shifting, changing, twisting into some other shape.  The force that had propelled him away from his safe place was gone, and he fell to what was the ground; the dirt under his hands stung him, and he jerked away from it, throwing his head back and roaring in terror that this was happening, that he had no control over this sudden, abhorrent change.

His back felt ripped open, and strangely it didn’t hurt; in fact, his pain was growing less, even as he was changing into what he didn’t know.  The horror rushed through him even as the agony receded, and he roared once more, through a mouth that felt far too large and yet…it was _right_ , and he couldn’t begin to accept it.

There were still the sounds of screaming and yelling, but he couldn’t deal with that now.  Whatever the light was, it was turning him into something he hadn’t been before, pin-prickling over his skin in a pain/pleasure sensation that he wanted to lurch away from, but couldn’t.  His mind attempted to retreat back into the shadow world he’d long existed in, but the light wouldn’t let him.

He thrashed, and his new body was far larger and more dangerous than the one that he’d known, and he was so very scared and horrified and he wanted to forget and become that damaged thing he’d been before…

But he couldn’t.

The only overwhelming thought he had was, _What am I?_

And then, _Was this done to me to protect others?_

It didn’t matter that these were the most coherent thoughts he’d had in so long. It only mattered that this was not right, that he shouldn’t be like this…

And then his mind whispered, _This is your true self._

_You are Iohannes…Ieuen…Iestyn…Idris…Iaon…Ifan…Ianto.  This is who you are.  You have simply been made to forget._

_Take back what is yours and be calm. I am with you, son.  Be yourself once more._

But he couldn’t.

He screamed.

It almost drowned out the sound of someone saying something that thrummed with a power that once again should have been familiar yet wasn’t.

The darkness returned, but this time it was different from the purgatory he’d been in before.

  

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the next chapter. Hurray! I'm thinking there's about three more chapters in this, and then we'll be moving on to "Curse of the Mayfly" (AKA "Reset"). This chapter is actually the first scene I came up with when I was thinking about the rewrite, so I hope you like it. 
> 
> I did complete NaNo this year, but it's going to be a bit before you see that story. It's a Future Fic, and there's something I have to write before I post it. I can hear you all saying, "But she writes stuff out of order all the time!" but this is something I want to make sure is in the correct order. So I'll be working on that the same time I'm working on the end of this and the next story. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for your patience! Hope this was worth the wait. :)

 

**_13 September 2008_ **

****

Kathy slumped down in the driver’s seat of her car, taking a sip from her cold coffee.  She made a face and set the cup down in the holder on the centre panel, wishing it was both warm and Ianto’s special blend.

Davidson’s idea had merit; a little surveillance of the Torchwood Hub might be one way of telling what they would be dealing with inside.  Certainly the team wouldn’t stay there if there was Rift alert, and then she and her partner could see who was being involved and if there was anything visibly wrong. 

There were four entrances to the Hub that she was aware of: the sewers, which was how Jones had gotten out and was fairly dangerous if precautions weren’t taken; the Tourist Office, where Deborah would be on duty; the invisible lift, which seemed to be Harkness’ preferred method of coming and going; and the hidden delivery entrance in the parking garage under the Millennium Centre, where Kathy was currently sitting on her arse with the Torchwood SUV under watch.  Davidson was up on the Plass playing tourist, watching Mermaid Quay and the lift.  The sewers…well, there were too many entrances to that to keep under surveillance, so Kathy had given that up as a lost cause.

Still, despite Davidson’s rather good idea, Kathy had hated leaving Estelle’s house while Jones was in the condition he was.  It was obvious how it was affecting Estelle and especially Alice, seeing him almost completely unresponsive and tucked away in his corner like a catatonic child.  Alice had practically begged to come with them, to get out and to be doing something, but Estelle had appealed to her love for her adoptive father, and so Alice had stayed. 

Besides, keeping Alice away from the temptation that was storming the Torchwood Hub was only the smart thing to do.  While Kathy could understand the impulse and had felt it herself, it would only put any of them in danger, not knowing what they were dealing with.  Any member of Torchwood could hold their own, but Kathy knew they primarily had to look out for Harkness and Delaware, the two most dangerous people in the Hub, if not in Cardiff itself.  They couldn’t take the risk that something was affecting the members of the team, just as Ianto had been affected. 

No, they had to know what they were dealing with.  And, without eyes inside the Hub, surveillance on the outside was the next best thing.

Still, waiting was the hardest part of a stake-out.  Kathy hated them on general principle; bad food and cold coffee being the norm, along with sheer boredom.  What was worse about this time was it was giving her time to think about what had happened to Toshiko, and how they could possibly fix it.

In any other circumstance, Kathy knew that Toshiko and her teammates could hold their own.  They’d been through so much together, saved the world any number of times…so, whatever was going on had to be bad if it was keeping her fiancée from contacting her and Harkness from being at his mate’s side.  Whatever it was, it had damaged Ianto so badly he couldn’t even speak about it, let alone recall anything that had been done to him. 

Kathy sighed.  All of this was getting her nowhere and coming up with horror stories wouldn’t make anything better.  No, she had to concentrate on what she was doing and not let her own fears distract her.

Her eyes trailed from the conspicuous Torchwood SUV toward Harper’s sports’ car, Williams’ Ford, and then to Toshiko’s own car.  When she’d first noticed the vehicle Kathy had frowned; the last time she’d seen it, it had been in the carpark of their building where Toshiko had left it when Deborah had picked her up to take her to the airport, for her trip to Geneva.  Somehow it had gotten from there to here, and the only person Kathy could think of collecting it was Toshiko herself.  It must have occurred sometime after Kathy had left for Cardiff CID that morning, which was more disturbing than it should have been since there had been no note or call that she was collecting the automobile. 

She’d been sitting there for a couple of hours when her mobile rang.  Stifling a sigh, she answered.  “Swanson.”

_“Kathy,”_ Rhiannon Davies answered, _“I just made it to Estelle’s.”_

Her heart sped up.  “You’ve seen Ianto then?”

_“I have.”_ Her voice was sombre.  _“This is like nothing I’ve seen or read about.  It’s not magical, either; I’m not getting any of the usual vibes.  But at the same time, Ianto’s own magic seems…suppressed, in some way.  I can’t explain it.”_

That confirmed Estelle’s hypothesise about the cause of Ianto’s ‘illness’ wasn’t magical in form. “What about his reaction to the word, ‘remember’?”

_“Maybe it triggers something for him, I don’t know.  And I don’t dare try saying it to him, either.  I’m not gonna put him through that again, I don’t want to risk him getting anymore hurt than he already is.”_

Kathy could agree with that.  Having seen Ianto in distress, it had been all she could do not to get sick at the sight of her normally strong friend so weak and vulnerable.  Her mind flashed back to when she and Davidson had first found Ianto, back against a rubbish bin, curled up as if he were afraid he was about to be struck a deadly blow.  Kathy still didn’t know what she’d done or said to convince the traumatised dragon to come with them, but she was glad he had.  For once he needed to be protected, and Estelle and the others were the best ones to do just that.

_“I do think though that the Earth Dragon is somehow tied up with Ianto’s condition,”_ Rhiannon went on.  _“I just don’t know…yet.  Estelle wants to contact the Historian for the Cardiff Coven, and it might not be a bad idea.  For the time being though, I want to see if he can’t recall a few things on his own, like who we all are.  We’ll see if it works…”_

Kathy certainly hoped so.  “Keep me posted, okay?”

_“You know I will.  Anything happening there?”_

“Not a thing…” Movement out of the corner of her eye had her readjusting her sentence.  “I may have spoken too soon.  I’ll call you back.”  She disconnected the call, sliding the phone into her jacket pocket as she watched what was going on at the hidden door.

Her breathing stopped for a moment when she realised it was Toshiko coming out of the Hub.

But she wasn’t alone.

There was a man with her.

Kathy didn’t recognise him.  He was a bit on the short side, with ginger hair and a ratty-looking face.  He was smiling at something Toshiko said, and then he put an arm around her waist.

In that moment, Kathy saw red.

Under her hands the steering wheel of the unmarked police vehicle she was using grew warm, and it took her a few moments to figure out that she was doing it; that she was channelling some sort of fire magic from the Fire Dragon and that was making the material in her grip heat. 

Kathy took a deep breath to calm herself.  This was it, the proof she needed that something was seriously wrong.  Toshiko wouldn’t let just anyone hug her like that, and this stranger certainly couldn’t be one of those people simply because Kathy had never before met him.  And he wasn’t from that Year, so no super-secret origin, either.

No, this was a complete and total stranger, and he had his arm around Kathy’s fiancée’s waist.

She’d have to explain the finger marks melted into the steering wheel when she turned the car in.

Kathy watched as Toshiko and her ‘companion’ got into Tosh’s car, the man driving.  It was another tick in the ‘something seriously wrong’ column, because Toshiko didn’t even let Kathy drive her pride and joy, a wonderfully restored classic Mustang that Harkness had given her not long after Toshiko had been hired by Torchwood.  Toshiko had told her that Jack had claimed that it reminded him of her spirit.  So, it was simply too precious to let just anyone get behind the wheel.

It was just another sign that something was dreadfully wrong.

She watched as the Mustang roared out of the car park, calling Davidson over the radio and letting him know what was going on.  He responded, acknowledging her order to stay on surveillance on the Plass as she was starting her own car and following Toshiko’s out.  All of Kathy’s cop instincts were screaming at her, that this guy wasn’t right, that Toshiko was in danger even though all she’d seen so far was some intimate touches.  This wasn’t someone that her fiancée had ever introduced her.  He wasn’t affiliated with Torchwood that Kathy was aware of, and both Jack and Ianto had been good about letting her know about new employees; case in point, Patrick Delaware.  They’d even asked her opinion on the hiring, which Kathy had appreciated.  Sure, the idea of an American messing around on her streets in an authority position made her teeth itch, but he’d been better than the others…with the exception of Eion Gwynne, but she’d met him before at the Lord Mayor’s office and hadn’t been certain he’d have been right for Torchwood.

It had also helped that she’d known what Delaware had done during the Year of the Toclafane.

This person though…she hadn’t heard anything about, and that was out of character for Harkness or Jones. 

The Mustang was breaking at least five traffic laws, and while Kathy would have been perfectly within her rights to pull it over, she really wanted to see where they were going.  It didn’t take long for her to figure it out: whoever the arsehole was with Toshiko was driving toward her old flat.

Kath was well aware of Toshiko’s history with UNIT, and how she’d been rescued by Jack and Ianto and given a job at Torchwood.  She knew about the agreements that had been made, the contract that had been signed, and that Toshiko had less than two months before her practical five-year ‘slavery’ period would be ending – not that Harkness or Ianto had ever treated her like she was less than a full team member and a part of the family.  As part of that agreement she had to keep a flat in her name, so that UNIT could check up on her at any time, just to make sure that she was abiding by that contract. 

But, once that time was done, Toshiko had planned on giving up the flat and moving in with Kathy.  Not that she hadn’t already done that, given that most of her belongings were already there, but this would be official.  Kathy’s flat wasn’t as large, but it was actually a bit closer to the Hub, so it was a just a bit more convenient for both of them.  They would be completely free to live their own lives without UNIT looking over their shoulders.

Kathy was looking forward to it.  Even if Toshiko would never leave Torchwood, there would no longer be that looming presence waiting for her to screw something up.  It enraged Kathy that UNIT had had absolutely no compassion toward her fiancée’s plight, and she was just plain grateful that at least Harkness and Ianto and believed in her enough to get out of the hell that UNIT had put her into. 

Not that she’d ever admit it out loud, at least not to Harkness.  That bastard’s ego was big enough already.

Sure enough, Toshiko’s car turned into the car park outside of her old building, and Toshiko and the ratty stranger got out, strolling up to the front door as if they didn’t have a care in the world.  Kathy ground her teeth as she pulled up to the curb, watching them enter before she got out and went after them, pulling her gun from her holster.

Kathy gave them a couple of minutes head start then made her way up the stairs and up to the third floor.  Toshiko’s flat was down the hall, and she had her key in her hand without her thinking about it.  It slid into the lock almost soundlessly, and then Kathy was in.

The gun was a comfortable weight in her hand as she made her way through the flat.  It was almost as familiar as her own, the scent of jasmine still in the air despite the fact that Toshiko hadn’t spent all that much time in the flat. 

There was nothing in the lounge or the kitchen, but as Kathy stealthily made her way across the hard wood floor she could hear noises coming from the bedroom.  Her blood froze as she realised just what was going on in there, and then she began burning in anger.  She had no fucking clue what that bastard had done to Toshiko, because there was no way she’d ever cheat on Kathy with someone else. 

“How far would you go for me?” she heard a strange voice ask.

There was a pause, and Kathy crept forward, leaning her back against the wall just outside the bedroom.

“I need to know,” the voice went on.  “Would you die for me?”

“Yes,” Toshiko answered breathlessly.

Kathy couldn’t take it any longer.

She pushed her way into the bedroom, gun held out in front of her.  “Stop right now!” she ordered.

Kathy had expected what she saw, but it still felt like someone had slammed a spanner into his chest.  Toshiko was lying on the bed, her shirt off, and the unknown man was straddling her, his own shirt unbuttoned and his belt undone.  He was looking at Kathy with such a look of anger in his pale eyes…and then that expression was gone, replaced by concern.  “Is there some sort of problem?” he asked mildly, not moving. 

Toshiko’s head was craned uncomfortably backward, her brows drawn in confusion.  “Detective Inspector Swanson?” she questioned, sounding as if Kathy was the very last thing she was expecting to see.

And maybe it was, judging from the look of incomprehension on her fiancée’s face.  It was as if Toshiko had forgotten what they meant to each other, like Kathy was nearly a complete stranger.  That they hadn’t been through hell and back with each other. 

Kathy felt the anger rise.  She didn’t know who this arsehole was, but she was willing to get he was the reason the woman she loved didn’t know her anymore.  Kathy didn’t care if it was magic or some other shit, but she wasn’t about to lose Toshiko to this would-be rapist.

“Get away from her,” Kathy growled.  She could literally feel the Fire Dragon within her, the connection heating with the fury of the world’s burning heart, rising like magma through her very veins.  She could feel a tingling in the hand not holding her gun, and she knew if she looked down she would be able to see the fire magic flickering about her fingers.

The man slowly backed away, hands raised.  “This is simply a misunderstanding,” he said as if this was the biggest joke he’d ever heard.  “We can discuss this…”

He took a step closer, and Kathy aimed right at his heart.  “Do not move,” she barked.  “I don’t know who you are –“

“Of course you do,” Toshiko cut in, buttoning her blouse.  “Adam’s with us…with Torchwood.  I know you’ve seen him with the team numerous times…”

“Bullshit,” Kathy spat.  “This arsehole isn’t with Torchwood at all.  I’ve never seen him before with the team.”

She stared at the man, name apparently Adam, and just knew he was behind everything that was happening.  He’d brainwashed Toshiko somehow into thinking that he’d been with Torchwood all along, and also that they were an item.  Kathy didn’t know how he’d done it, but the sooner she got him away from Toshiko the better.

First though, she needed to convince Toshiko that something was wrong.

“If he’s with Torchwood,” she went on, “then he must know all about the Toclafane.”

Toshiko frowned.  “What’s the Toclafane?”

Yeah, this guy had obviously done something with Toshiko’s mind, to make her forget about that Year.  Even though it had been the worst thing Kathy could have ever gone through – not including what was currently going on in this bedroom – it had been the beginning of her and Toshiko’s coming together, leading to her finally popping the question.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adam said, his voice soothing. 

He took another step forward, and Kathy growled out a warning, “I said don’t move.  Unless you want to get shot, then of course keep it up…”

Truthfully she didn’t really want to shoot him.  He must hold all the answers to everything that had happened, with Toshiko and Ianto and Torchwood.  She needed to get those answers out of him, and putting a bullet in him was out of the question.

Still, he didn’t need to know that, did he?

So, Kathy racked the slide of her weapon then pointed it back at him.  “Go ahead, try something.  I’d love to kill you just for putting your hands on my fiancée.”

That threat seemed to get through to him.  He stopped moving, his hands still up in the air, and his eyes were pensive even though he was smiling.  “I think you have Toshiko confused with someone else…”

“Oh really?  Then how do you explain the ring she’s wearing?”

Toshiko blinked.  She then raised her hand, where the diamond ring that Kathy had given her twinkled as if nothing weird was going on. 

Then her eyes darted toward Adam, and she said, “Why didn’t I notice the ring before?”

Before he could answer, Kathy went on, “And the picture?”  She motioned with the gun toward the framed photograph lying face down on the bedside table.  “I’d love to hear his explanation of that.”

Toshiko’s hand was trembling as she reached toward the frame, but before she could touch it Adam spoke. “She’s obviously trying to get to you, Tosh.”  He sounded completely and utterly sincere.  “We know the truth, remember?”

Even as Toshiko froze, Kathy was struck by that word.

It was the one word that Ianto had reacted to so badly.

Before she knew what she was doing, Kathy’s finger was tightening on the trigger.  She barely managed to stop herself from putting a bullet right through the arse’s heart.  “You’re the one!” she spat.  “You’re the one who hurt Ianto!”  It was all she could do not to step forward and punch the bastard in the balls because she really needed him alive to find out how to fix things, even if shooting him would make her feel a hell of a lot better.  “What did you do to him?”

The smirk was barely there, but Kathy saw it.  This Adam had been the one who’d damaged her friend so badly he didn’t even seem to recall who he was; who was currently a wreck curled up in Estelle’s living room, not able to communicate with anyone and without apparent memory of who he was and what he was. 

He was proud of what he’d done to Ianto. 

But it was Toshiko’s query that just about broke Kathy’s heart.

“Who’s Ianto?”

Nothing could have prepared her for _that_.  For Toshiko not knowing Ianto; the one person who was as close as a brother to her, who had been the one Kathy had approached about getting permission to ask for Toshiko’s hand.  Toshiko had been the one to guide Ianto and Martha through the disaster that was the Year of the Toclafane, and who Toshiko wanted to stand up with her at their wedding in the position as father of the bride.  It was inconceivable that she would ever forget Ianto Jones, and Kathy gasped with the enormity of what this bastard had done. 

Kathy didn’t know what to say.  She stood there silently, her eyes darting from her fiancée to this Adam person, her brain scrambling for the right words that would bring Toshiko’s memories back to her.

She didn’t get the chance to discover them.

Her mobile rang.

Without taking her eyes from either of them, Kathy dug into his jacket pocket for her phone.  She flipped it open without glancing at the caller ID.  “Swanson,” she growled, not at all concerned about how wrecked her voice sounded.

_“Kathy,”_ Alice’s own voice was terrible, full of worry and fear, _“we need you back here now.”_

“I can’t,” she denied.  “I think I have who’s responsible –“

_“Then bring them along.  We need you here!_ Tad _needs you here!”_

She was near panic.  Kathy couldn’t ignore that.  “What happened?”

_“It’s…he changed into his dragon form, and he didn’t know what he was…he was horrified!  Please, come back.”_

It was one more major shock in a day of them.  Kathy had to go, but she didn’t want this…whatever he was within feet of Estelle’s house.  But there was nothing for it.

“I’m on my way.” She disconnected the phone and put it back into her pocket.  Then she reached around to the side of her belt and pulled off the handcuffs.  She tossed them to Toshiko.  “Put those on your fake boyfriend,” she snarled.  Kathy didn’t really want to get close to him; there was something about him that had her completely on edge, and that was even beyond the fact that she was pretty certain he was the reason Toshiko and Ianto were the way they were. 

She watched closely as Toshiko locked the handcuffs, even having Adam turn so she could make certain they were on properly.  Then she said, “There’s another pair in the table there,” she motioned toward the bedside table.  “Get them out and put them on.  Slowly.”

Toshiko did as Kathy asked, her face confused as she pulled out a pair of fuzzy pink cuffs. 

Really, it was the best that could be done in the circumstances.  Toshiko was under some sort of mind control, which meant Kathy couldn’t trust her.  However, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t make her fiancée as comfortable as possible.  “Get them on,” she directed, “and while you’re doing that you should ask yourself just how I knew they were in there…”

 

  
  


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this has been so long in coming. Things are finally getting a bit under control and I'm really hoping the writing drought is finally over. Thanks or sticking in there through everything.

 

**_13 September 2008_ **

 

****

Alice chewed at her cuticles, vaguely decided they didn’t taste very good, and stopped.

Then she started once more as she watched Rhiannon approach her Tad, as if she was trying to tame a wild animal.

She stopped once more when she heard the voice of her mother in the back of her mind snapping at her that a young lady didn’t bite her nails.  Alice’s conscience was usually in Lucia’s voice, although that had been fading away for a bit now.  Thinking back, it had been just after she’d forgiven her Dad and had invited him back into hers and Steven’s lives.  She wondered whose voice it would be if her mother’s vanished entirely.

Then she promptly dropped that line of thought as her entire attention went back to Rhiannon.

Ianto didn’t seem to be acknowledging her at all.  He simply kept petting Moses, which was the only movement he made; the rhythmic stroking almost like a metronome, the same back and forth motions nearly hypnotic in nature.  It made Alice antsy to watch it, and yet it was the only sign that her Tad was even aware of the outside world.

Whatever had done this to him, she would make certain they paid for it.  No one messed with her family and got away with it.

“Alice,” Estelle’s voice cut into her thoughts of vengeance.

She turned to look at her Dad’s oldest friend.  Estelle’s eyes looked bruised from the worry they carried, and yet she was smiling slightly, trying to reassure her that everything was going to be alright.  Alice’s heart went out to her, and she reached over, taking Estelle’s hand in hers.  It was strong and warm.  “We’re going to figure this out,” Estelle replied. 

“I know we are,” Alice answered.  Because there was no way she wasn’t.  Whoever this was, she was going to find them and make sure they didn’t get escape. 

Alice had never quite felt this way before.  Yes, she was very protective of her son, but this was different.  This was her father, and if she’d been told last year that she would have completely forgiven him and had welcomed him back into their lives she would have scoffed.  But that had been before everything she’d seen; before the one Year that no one but a small group of people remembered.  In that Year she’d been a witness to the selflessness of the people Jack Harkness had gathered around him, in a Torchwood that was so totally different from what her mother had told her about that only the name was the same.  She’d also seen what her own father had been through, if only in bits and pieces when the Master would let the signal out, to show the trodden down people of Earth just what he was capable of.  Anyone who’d been able to see those signals would not have been able to deny just how strong and determined her father had been, to have to deal with that torture meted out by a madman out to destroy everything in the name of the New Time Lord Empire.

He had been a hero to so many.  Even if would have denied it.

An entire planet had once known it, more than they’d known about the Doctor until Martha Jones had spread the word about him, passing along the story of the Time Lord and the plan that really shouldn’t have succeeded.  Now, though, only a few could recall and considered him one, except for the man himself.  Her Dad never thought of himself that way, and while in some people it might have been thought of as false humility, in Jack it was the completely honest truth.  To Jack, he wasn’t the hero…everyone else was.  He’d just done what he’d had to.

She glanced back over at her Tad.  Rhiannon was kneeling next to Ianto, not touching him, just speaking in a calm murmur that Alice couldn’t quite catch.  Of course she knew the story of how Ianto and Rhiannon knew each other; how it had been the Jones family, before they’d taken that name and so many centuries ago, who had accepted a young, traumatised dragon and had done the best they could for him, knowing that he was the last of his kind.  Ianto had taken their last name in honour, and Rhiannon was the last of the Joneses.  She had grown up knowing dragons.  If anyone could help, it would be her.

Alice didn’t want to admit that she was slightly jealous that it couldn’t be her helping the dragon she thought of as her Tad.  But, whoever did it, she would be grateful.

She would never have expected to feel this way about someone her Dad had committed himself to.  If she’d met Ianto before that Year, she wouldn’t have hesitated to hate him for doing what she thought her mother hadn’t been able to…to take up a place in her father’s heart, one that Lucia had been certain hadn’t existed.  Certainly, she knew now that wasn’t true, that her Dad had loved her mother to the point that he was willing to commit to her, only it had been her mother who’d been scared and who had fled.  There was a part of Alice that would always be angry at her for it, for giving Alice a biased look into her immortal father’s life.  Had it been fear that had motivated her own mother for doing what she had?  Alice would never know. 

So lost in her thoughts was she that Alice didn’t notice what was happening until it was almost too late.

Rhiannon’s gasp snapped her out of her reverie.  Alice blinked once, her attention slamming back to her Tad…

Who was glowing.

She recognised it immediately.  Ianto was taking his dragon form, but there was no room in Estelle’s tiny sitting room for him to do so safely. 

His reaction though was horrible.

Ianto was screaming.

Alice reacted before her mind could catch up with her body.  She darted forward, pushing Rhiannon aside and grabbing her Tad’s arm, pulling him to his feet. Moses leapt clear, meowing in distress as the glow began to stretch and change, and Alice could feel the clothes under her hand fading away, being replaced by scales that shouldn’t have been as cold as they were.

She had no idea how she actually got Ianto out into the back garden, but she suspected she had help from both Estelle and Rhiannon.  They barely had him out the door before the magic that surrounded her Tad flared outward, and Alice was faced with a very panicked dragon.

Wings mantling, the dragon roared, a small gout of flame spurting from his nostrils as he struggled against something only he seemed to be able to see.  Alice wanted to go to him, to let him know that it was alright, that he didn’t have anything to be frightened of, but she didn’t want to risk being injured by him by accident.  It would have destroyed him once he came back to himself if he’d done something to her, even if he hadn’t been able to help it.

And he was very obviously frightened.  It only took seconds for her to realise that her Tad was scared of _himself_.  That he had no idea what had just occurred, and suddenly Alice was terrified that he’d fly off without a clue as to what he was doing.  She took a step forward, needing to help but fearing he’d trample her in the horror of his true self.

The sudden scent of lavender filled Alice’s nostrils, and her eyes fluttered closed against her will.  She staggered, but was soon upright, Rhiannon’s hand on her elbow.  “Sleep spell,” she whispered in Alice’s ear, and that alone helped her come back to her senses.

She heard Estelle say something in a language that Alice thought she should know, and as she watched the flailing dragon began to calm, the loud roaring sinking down into small, weak mewling sounds as he settled onto the churned-up grass. 

With a muffled thud, the dragon’s large head came to rest on the solid ground, his eyes sliding closed as he took a long breath and went to sleep.

Alice’s heart was thumping fit to burst, but that didn’t stop her from falling to her knees beside her Tad’s head, hand reaching out to stroke his scales.  At least he was now warm; that horrible coldness hadn’t been right, and she was glad it was gone.  She turned her eyes up to Estelle, who was standing there, hand outstretched, her eyes limned with the gold of her magic.  The gold quickly faded, and she slumped slightly, Rhiannon there to support her just as she’d supported Alice when she’d gotten caught in the spell’s casting radius.

“What the hell was that?” she demanded, her voice husky with pent-up anger and fear.  “It was like…” she faded out, not wanting to say what she was thinking.

“Like he didn’t know what he was,” Estelle finished for her.

“How is that possible?” Alice wanted to know.  “Being a dragon…that’s what Tad _is_.  He isn’t some human who can change his shape…” She swallowed, bile rising as she considered just what had to have been done to Ianto to have made him forget his own basic nature.

“This shouldn’t be possible,” Rhiannon exclaimed. 

Her eyes were wide with the exact same emotions Alice was feeling.  It was good to know she wasn’t the only one.

“We need to fix this,” Estelle hissed.  She sat down next to Alice, her own hand touching the brilliant green scales of the dragon that was more than just a friend to them both. 

Alice stared down at the still dragon, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

Intellectually, she knew she was having a panic attack.  She’d never had one before, but there was no doubt that this was what was happening.  Seeing her strong, capable Tad like that…knowing that something equally terrible had most likely happened to her Dad, as well as her friends…it was too much.

She wasn’t cut out for this sort of life.  Alice wasn’t made for mysticism and magic and aliens and everything that was Torchwood.  She was a frail human being with a son and strange relatives and she just wasn’t _made_ for this…

Arms wrapped around her, and she shuddered at the touch but couldn’t help but crave it.  Someone was murmuring to her, trying to calm her, and despite Alice _needing_ to be out of control her companions weren’t going to let her wallow, and she knew it.

Eventually, she regained control of herself.  She sagged forward into Estelle’s embrace – and it was obviously her, the tell-tale odour of lavender still clinging to her clothes.  Alice sighed, feeling completely and total wrecked, the need for vengeance swamped by her utter helplessness.  “How could Tad not know who he is?” she whispered.  She straightened up, in order to meet Estelle’s eyes.  They were kind, and there were tears on her cheeks which Alice knew had to match her own.

“We’re going to figure this out,” Estelle promised.  She leaned forward, kissing Alice on the forehead. 

Alice wondered if this was what having a grandmother was like; this unconditional feeling of love and caring that she was getting from the older woman. 

“We need a plan,” Rhiannon said fiercely.  “We need to get our own back.”

Alice couldn't agree with her more.

 

***********

 

The door slammed, making Alice jump and nearly spill her tea.

Estelle had ushered Alice back into the house, making her sit and then leaving her alone to make the tea.  Rhiannon had stayed outside with Ianto; she would let them know if anything changed with the dragon.  At the moment he was still deeply asleep, Estelle’s spell working to keep him sedated. 

Alice had called Kathy back, almost feeling embarrassed by her neediness over the phone.  But she’d heard what the police detective had said: “ _I think I have who’s responsible…”_

She really wanted to see just who that was.  Alice wasn’t at all certain what she would do when faced with the bastard who’d made her Tad forget his true self and had somehow done something to her Dad and the rest of Torchwood, but she did know she would have to keep herself calm and not do anything stupid.  They had to figure out how to undo this, and beating the arse to a pulp wouldn’t achieve that.

“What the hell happened?” Kathy demanded, storming into the lounge like an avenging angel.  She looked ready to kill whoever didn’t give her an answer.

“Ianto doesn’t remember he’s a dragon,” Estelle snapped back, her own voice just as furious as she carried the tea tray out and put it down on the coffee table.  Alice knew it wasn’t at Kathy; it was at the situation, and just how wrong and horrible everything was. 

The detective inspector put her hands on her hips, regarding the witch as if the other woman had just spoken gibberish.  “How the fuck is that possible?  It’s not like Ianto is a man who just happens to be able to shapeshift.  He’s a bloody _dragon_!  It’s who he is!”

Estelle rolled her eyes as she poured the tea.  “And you’re telling _me_ this why?”

She had a point. 

“You said you think you know who’s responsible for this?” Alice asked Kathy, more needing answers than trying to get between the two women and the argument that was brewing up between them.

The cop nodded, her eyes flickering as if she was channelling the fire of her Dragon companion.  “Yeah.  He’s somehow made Tosh forget about me and think _my_ fiancée is _his_ lover!”

Alice’s jaw dropped open, her hand bobbling her tea cup as she gaped at Kathy.  “And he’s not dead?”

“Not because I didn’t want to,” she affirmed.  “When I saw him…damnit, he’s done something to the love of my life, it’s like rape, isn’t it?”  Her entire face crumpled into misery. “He’s screwed with her mind, just like he did Ianto’s, I’m sure of it.  He’s the only new thing about Torchwood, and he’s got them thinking he’s been on the team for a while.  Tosh isn’t believing me when I tell her he’s some sort of mental rapist and that we’re engaged.”

Estelle stepped forward and wrapped Kathy in a hug.  The detective inspector stiffened for a second, but then put her own arms around the older woman, accepting the comfort.  “We’re going to get to the bottom of this,” Estelle promised. 

Alice suddenly felt the urge to hit something.  They were finally going to get answers, and all she could think of his committing some sort of act of violence against this person who hurt her Tad and who made her friend think she was someone she wasn’t.  She couldn’t really even imagine how Kathy was feeling, knowing that the person she loved had no memory of anything they’d done together. 

Kathy didn’t last in the hug very long.  She pulled away from Estelle, a hard, sharp expression on her face.  “I’m going to bring them in,” she growled.  “Toshiko needs a dose of sanity and that bastard needs to tell us what the hell he’s done.  I don’t know if it’s magic or something else…”

“No magic,” Estelle affirmed.  “I don’t even need to see this person to know that.” She smiled darkly.  “Let me help you escort them in, shall I?”

“Yeah, thanks.  I left Davidson still on stake out at the Hub, and I don’t trust him not to try something, even if I don’t have a bloody clue _how_ he did it.”

Alice found herself following Kathy and Estelle out to the detective’s car.  She could see Toshiko, seated in the back, with someone else she didn’t recognise, and it was shadowed within to make out his features clearly.

Kathy strode up the car, flinging open the door on Toshiko’s side.  “Let’s go,” she murmured, her voice cracking with the emotions she was feeling.  Alice almost didn’t want to watch, thinking the moment almost too private, but she stood her ground next to Estelle as Kathy helped her fiancée out of the unmarked police vehicle. 

It was obvious that Toshiko was handcuffed from the position of her arms behind her back, and an expression of surprise crossed her face as she saw the other two women standing there like a pair of sentinels.  “Miss Cole?” she asked in confusion.  Her eyes darted to Alice, and she frowned.  “Do I know you?”

Alice heard a growl, and realised it had come from her.  “I’m Alice,” she said, trying and failing to keep her anger under control.  “I’m Jack and Ianto’s daughter.”

Toshiko shook her head in denial.  “Jack doesn’t have a daughter,” she said, straightening her spine as Kathy escorted her toward Estelle and Alice.  “And…who’s Ianto?  She,” cocking her head toward Kathy, “mentioned him like I was supposed to know who he was.  But I don’t.” 

“But you know me,” Estelle pointed out.

Toshiko nodded.  “I met you once…” her brow furrowed, as if she was in pain.  “You knew Jack…”

“Yes I do,” Estelle said, “but I also know you, Toshiko.  I spent a very long year with you when the Toclafane invaded.”

Toshiko’s eyes looked pinched as she shook her head.  “I have no idea what you’re talking about…”

“It’s definitely not magic,” Estelle confirmed.  “This is alien influence.”

“Just lovely,” Alice muttered.  _Bloody_ _Torchwood_.  “Let’s see the creature that’s done this to our family.”

Toshiko’s expression went from pained to angered.  “Adam isn’t a creature,” she hissed, her voice dipping low in fury.  “He’s a member of Torchwood, and the man I love.  Let us go and we’ll forget this all happened –“

“Can’t do that, love,” Kathy said.  She pushed Toshiko toward Alice. “Hold onto her as I get the fucker from the car.”

Alice wrapped her hand around Toshiko’s bicep, taking in her friend’s appearance.  Toshiko looked as if Kathy had caught her in the middle of something, and that something hadn’t been good; her blouse was mostly unbuttoned, showing off her black lace bra, and there was an obvious love bite on her collarbone.  Her hair was mussed, and the normally put-together tech expert was distinctly dishevelled.

Alice wondered how she would have felt if someone had brainwashed her lover into forgetting everything they’d meant to each other, and couldn’t even imagine it.  Kathy had to be holding onto her control by her fingernails.

Kathy had turned back to the car, and Toshiko made her move. 

She twisted out of Alice’s grasp, her bare foot slamming into Alice’s knee with enough force to tumble her to the stones of Estelle’s driveway.  Alice hissed in pain as the sharp gravel cut into her palms and stabbed through the fabric of her trousers as she tried to catch herself, rolling instinctively onto her side to save herself from any more damage.

The scent of lavender once again tickled Alice’s nostrils, but this time she knew what it was and didn’t let herself fall under the sleeping spell.  Her eyes tracked Toshiko as her friend, who had been trying to get away, collapsed into the driveway, fast asleep. 

Estelle was livid.  Her eyes glowing, she stormed toward the car, Kathy hadn’t had a chance to react when Toshiko had attempted to make a break for it, and was standing by the driver’s side of the car, her mouth hanging open.  Then she shook herself as Estelle approached.  “Is she okay?” the copper demanded, her own eyes flickering.

“She’s asleep,” Estelle assured her.  “Let me pass.  I want the one who has done this.”  Golden energy traced her fingertips as she practically pulled the rear door off its hinges in her fury.  “Get out.”

Alice couldn’t see the person who exited the police car until he was standing in front of Estelle, his eyes narrowed.  He had ginger hair, and to her his face was squirrely and cunning, his lips curled up in a small, sarcastic smirk.  His shirt was undone, revealing a pale chest with a whipcord thin musculature.  He really didn’t resemble much of anything, but Alice knew better than to accept anything at face value.  Besides, there was something about the pale eyes that sent chills down her spine, as if he really wasn’t truly human.

“What are you?” the man snapped, staring at Estelle as if she was the devil there, and not him.

“I am Estelle Cole,” she answered, one hand raised to show off her power.  “I am a member of the Cardiff coven of witches, and a dragon friend.  You are evil, and we are going to put back what you have taken away.”

The man didn’t seem to know what to make of Estelle.  “You aren’t possible,” he denied, his words whiplash sharp.  “Magic doesn’t exist.”

“I think you’ll find many things you think aren’t possible actually are.”  Estelle wrinkled her nose as if she was smelling something really unpleasant.  “And just what are you?”

Their captive’s expression went from anger to smirking, as if he was suddenly not at all afraid of Estelle.  “You’ll never get rid of me,” he boasted.  “As long as someone remembers me, I’ll be here.”

“Then we’ll have to make sure no one does,” Rhiannon’s voice rang out from the front door.  She stood there, implacable, her arms crossing her chest and her own dark eyes now as blue as the water of the lake in the valley she called home. 

Alice scrambled to her feet, ignoring the sting of the cuts on her hands, making a united front of Great Dragon friends, suddenly feeling the Air Dragon’s magic rising within her.  She wondered what her own eyes had changed to; she’d never even considered it before.  She’d have to check it out in a mirror when things were done.

She stepped toward the stranger as the winds kicked up, blowing her hair about her face.  Without her bidding, words came tumbling from her lips.  “I claim the Rite of Vengeance,” she hissed, “I am the Friend of Air, daughter to the Last and his Eternal Mate.  You have harmed my family, and for that you will pay with your existence.  I will end you, and you shall know my wrath with the last breaths from your body.  This I swear.”

Alice could feel the power thrumming through her veins, as if were her life’s blood, and the wind rose around her.  She’d never experienced anything like it before, and intellectually knew she should be freaking out about it; but she forced that down, and faced the being that had damaged her Tad and who had done Goddess knew what to her Dad and the rest of her friends.

“So mote it be,” came three voices, sealing the vow with magic. 

Alice glanced at her friends, and noticed that Kathy looked annoyed.  “What?”

“Damnit Alice… I wish I’d thought of that first!”  Kathy’s voice was just as disgruntled as her face.

Alice couldn’t help but snort.

“You might get your chance sooner rather than later,” Rhiannon said.  She was staring at the stranger still cuffed and standing in the open door of the car, who seemed just as full of himself despite Alice’s claim.  “He’s awake.” 

She was pale, and Alice blurted, “Tad’s okay, right?” Her chest hurt, somehow knowing that her hopeful feeling was wrong, that something was going on and she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know what it was, the fear rising up like a tide and smothering the sparking of her emotions.

Rhiannon shivered slightly.  She pointed at the man who had caused all this.  “He’s requesting to see that person,” she said, not answering Alice’s question.  “Bring him along and…you’ll see.”

Kathy had her gun out.  “Go on,” she snapped.  “And don’t think I won’t shoot you if I think you’re gonna pull some shit.  You’ve wrecked my family and while Alice might have beaten me to the declaring of vengeance part, I won’t hesitate to hurt you if you make the wrong move.”

The man didn’t look afraid as he let Kathy usher him into the house.  Alice glanced at Estelle, who was worrying her lower lip with her teeth.  “Something’s not right,” the older woman murmured.

That was the understatement of the year as far as Alice was concerned. 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**_13 September 2008_ **

****

Kathy practically frog-marched her prisoner through Estelle’s house and toward the rear garden, the fierceness in her face in direct contrast to how she was actually feeling.

Seeing Toshiko not knowing her; not knowing how close they were, was tearing at her heart.  She wanted nothing more than to shoot this bastard where it would do the most good, but they needed answers.  And she would trust her friends to take care of Toshiko while she escorted this arsehole out to see Ianto.

The gun steady in her hand, Kathy used the barrel to prod her prisoner deeper into the house and toward the rear door that led out into the garden.  Rhiannon had been more rattled than her friend would have been if Ianto had been himself, and that worried her.  She needed him to be alright, and there was something about how Rhiannon had spoken that made Kathy think Ianto wasn’t alright at all.

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” the man snapped as she slowed his pace.

Kathy practically jammed the gun into his spinal column.  “I can say the same,” she growled, letting her own inner metaphorical dragon emerge.  She wasn’t going to put up with his shit, not after what he’d done. And that didn’t even include his putting hands on her fiancée.

The man let out a slight grunt at the pressure, but he kept moving forward. 

“If you’d just let me –“ he began.

Kathy wasn’t having any of it.  “Shut your gob and keep walking.”  She gave him yet another shove forward with her gun, not caring that the treatment would leave bruises.

The back door was open, and she took a great deal of pleasure in pushing him out into the back garden.  The enormous form of the dragon lay on the flattened grass, and her prisoner stopped in his tracks as he caught sight of it.  “What the hell?” he demanded, coming to a staggered halt.

“That,” Kathy snapped, “is what you fucked with when you tried to brainwash Ianto.”

The great head rose, and for a split second Kathy’s heart felt light once more at such a positive sign in her friend.

And then she saw what Rhiannon had not mentioned.

Instead of the brilliant blue, cat-like eyes of the ancient dragon, Ianto’s eyes were as black as night.

No…not like that.  They were actually such a deep brown as to appear black, with no familiar slitted pupil…only that unfamiliar and frightening colour.  It was like looking into the darkest shadow, and losing yourself within.

Kathy couldn’t help but shudder.

She couldn’t show weakness, though.  So she pressed her prisoner forward once more, until he stood just under the terrifying snout.  “So,” the dragon spoke, his voice the same as Kathy always recalled, “this is the creature who has caused such a mess.”

The words were humorous, but the tone in them was menacing.  It made Kathy shiver to hear it.

The dragon must have noticed, because it turned those unnatural eyes on her, and Kathy thought there was a touch of chagrin in them.  “I am truly sorry, child, for frightening you.  I shall be happy to explain, but let’s make certain this miscreant does not escape the justice he so richly deserves.”

The ground shook slightly, and before Kathy could curse in surprise the ground split and tendrils arose, wrapping themselves about her prisoner, in order to keep him in place.  She stepped out of the way of the grasping vines, not wanting to get caught in their grasp.  This was magic beyond what Ianto was capable of, and suddenly Kathy believed she knew exactly what was going on.

“You’re the Earth Dragon,” she practically accused. 

“What?” Alice gasped from behind her.  “How is that possible?”

“It normally would not be,” the Earth Dragon – in Ianto’s dragon body – responded.  “However, this creature would have damaged my son if I had not acted.”

Adam was trying to fight the vines, but as Kathy watched they simply tightened around him.  A part of her was hoping the Earth Dragon would take it too far and he’d he crushed, but that wasn’t in the cards.  Still she wanted her bit of vengeance but she would have to wait.

“I had to take you out of all their memories,” the being hissed.  “You didn’t fall under my power so I had to get rid of you!”

“As you would have done,” the Earth Dragon answered, almost placidly, “had his own mind not been just alien enough to you that your attempt to manipulate his memories failed. Luckily he and I have been somewhat bonded since he was a child, and that allowed me to try to protect him from your power causing injury; however, I failed to do so properly.  It did not help that you had also affected my Toshiko and could not rely on her assistance.  The lack of her presence and the power that I had shared with her also threw me off-balance and I was unable to accomplish what I’d wished to, so I became somewhat trapped.  Luckily, I was able to allow partial access Ianto’s memories, just enough to prod him toward escape.  Thankfully Kathy and her partner were the first to find us, as Ianto was in no physical or mental condition to do much more than escape.”

“So, Ianto is still in there?” Alice demanded worriedly.

“He is.  My presence in his mind is stifling him, and he has no ability to regain himself while I am within. I have attempted to save his mind from being damaged and I have hope that I have succeeded.  We shall not know until after this creature has been expunged and his own mind can again regain control.”

“You’ll never get rid of me,” the bastard boasted, but there was something in his tone that Kathy read as scared.  "As long as I’m remembered, I’ll be back.”

Ianto’s dragon body twitched involuntarily at the words.  Kathy wondered if it was reacting to the word “remember” despite the Earth Dragon being in mental control for the moment.  That, more than anything, told her that her friend was still in there somewhere and was in some ways aware of what was going on.

“We need a way to get him out of their heads,” Alice pointed out.  “I’m not at all sure how we’re going to do that.”

“There’s that memory drug that Torchwood uses,” Kathy suggested.

“And do you know to use it?” Alice countered.  “Because if we screw it up…”

She had a point.  Kathy had been told about Retcon, but she’d never used it herself.  In fact, she’d protested its use on her fellow coppers.  “What about Ianto?” she asked.  She turned to the dragon.  “If you have any sort of access to Ianto’s memories…”

“I am sorry, but that I do not know.”  The odd dark eyes were sorrowful.  “That information is deeply hidden.  Plus, I believe he is immune, so this Retcon cannot be used on him.”

“Besides,” Rhiannon pointed out, “we’d still need to get access to it, and that would mean getting access to Torchwood.  Then, we’d have to figure out where it’s kept, and then get past the entire team…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kathy sighed.  “So, Retcon is out.  What can we use then?  It will need to be something that can wipe out days of memories.”

“And,” Estelle added, “we’d have to get Jack and the rest of the team to voluntarily agree to whatever we come up with.”

The creature called Adam was smirking.  “Like I said, you can’t get rid of me.  I can keep coming back and feeding on their memories as long as I want.  And oh… what memories…” He looked practically orgasmic.  “They are such glorious memories, especially Jack’s…so full of regret.  He’s a feast all on his own.”

“Can I gag him, please?” Rhiannon asked.

Alice was livid, her hands balled into fists.  “That’s my father you’re talking about,” she growled.  “I will find a way to get you out of his head and fix whatever you screwed with.”

Kathy knew that Alice wanted to wipe that little grin off the arse’s face because she felt the same way. 

“I’ve changed them,” he went on.  “I’ve…improved them.  Made them better – “

“Bullshit,” Kathy swore.  “You’ve made my fiancée completely forget about me!  How is that making her better?”

“Don’t you know her doubts?” Adam teased.  “Haven’t you considered that she’s only with you because you asked and that she thinks no one else will have her?”

No, she hadn’t.  If anything, Kathy had long felt that Toshiko was far too good for _her_ , that one day she’d come to her senses and decide that Kathy was just a dumb copper who didn’t deserve someone as wonderful as Dr Toshiko Sato.  That Tosh could do so much better, if only given the chance.  Her Toshiko was brave and strong and oh so very smart that it humbled Kathy every time she even thought about it.

“I’ve removed her doubts,” he went on, his voice droning on.  “I’ve made her more confident, stronger than she’s ever been…she’s so much more than what she was, and it was me who brought it out in her.  You could never hope to make her the way she is now – “

“Don’t listen to him, Kathy,” Rhiannon growled.  “He’s just trying to get into your head.”

Rhiannon was right, of course.  The thing was, he was going about it the wrong way, and Kathy was just plain fed up.

“You have no idea,” she snarled.  “The only thing you did was twist her to your will, forcing yourself on her and making her believe that she loved you.  The Toshiko I know and love was already perfect.  You did nothing but warp her into something she was never meant to be.  _You_ needed her this way, so you could take advantage of her memories; she was just fine before you practically raped her.”

“You are correct, Kathy,” the Earth Dragon agreed.  “This creature has done damage to our loved ones, and we need to make certain he is stopped.”

“You can’t do a thing to me,” Adam boasted.  “You can keep me like this, but I’ve already set myself deep in the memories of your teammates, and I’ll stay there.”

“Actually,” Estelle murmured, “I think I might know a way…”

Kathy turned to look in her direction.  The elder witch was nibbling at her thumbnail, her expression uncertain.  She didn’t seem at all happy with her own thoughts. 

“What is it?” Alice asked.

Estelle sighed.  “There’s a spell that might work.  It’s a memory spell, but I’ve only ever used it to bring old memories to the surface…not to erase them.  I’ll need to check with my contact at the coven to see if it could be modified…but it might work.”

Adam snorted.  “Magic doesn’t exist.”

“Then how do you explain him?” Rhiannon hooked her thumb toward the rather large green dragon taking up space on Estelle’s grass.

The alien pressed his lips together, saying nothing.

“Let me see if I can call my friend,” Estelle said, heading back inside.  “If there’s a way to erase the memories that this person has tampered with, I’ll find it.”

Kathy watched her go back into the house, and for the first time since all this shit started she actually felt a bit of hope. 

“If there is such a spell,” Alice mused, “then we still need a way to get into the Hub and use it.  The moment we show up and Estelle starts casting, the rest of the team is going to try to retaliate.”

“It’s Harkness and Delaware we really need to worry about,” Kathy added.  “Williams is new, and Morrison doesn’t have much training besides running the front desk and using a taser.  Harper is somewhere in the middle, but there’s no telling just what was done to him.  He could be some sort of killing machine now for all we know.”

“And what about Tad?” Alice asked.  “Does he know what’s happened to him?”

“He may recall some,” the Earth Dragon answered, “however, once I am gone he should come back to himself.”

“And just how are you gonna be able to become unstuck from his mind?” Kathy wanted to know.  “Didn’t you say you were trapped?”

“I need to regain my balance, is the best explanation.  To do that, I am going to need Toshiko back in her right mind.”

That made Adam laugh.  “That’s not going to happen, beast.  I’ll always be a part of her.”

“We shall see,” the Earth Dragon answered serenely. 

 

**********

 

Estelle looked uncertain.

“I’ve not quite cast anything like this before,” she admitted as she rooted through her kitchen cabinets.  With a quiet cry of victory, she pulled out three candles, one red and two white.  “My friend in the coven made it sound easy, which worries me a bit.”  She managed a smile, as if to diffuse the concern in her eyes.

Despite being somewhat new to all this magical stuff, Kathy had faith in the elderly witch.  “What do we need to do?” she asked.

Estelle chewed her lip.  “We need to try this on Toshiko first.  Ianto needs to be healed, and the Earth Dragon released from the mess he’s gotten himself into.”

Kathy had been afraid of that, but she also knew this was the only chance they had to get her Tosh back.  “What do I need to do?” she reiterated, needing to be the one to help her fiancée.

That earned her a true smile.  “We’ll do what we can.”

Kathy followed Estelle out into the lounge, where Rhiannon and Alice were waiting.  Both women stood at their approach.  “Do you need anything?” Alice asked, sounding somewhat breathless.  She was worried, and Kathy felt the same.  If this didn’t work…

“We’ll wait out here,” Rhiannon said, without even asking if she needed to do anything to help the magic along.

“What?” Alice glared at her.  This was something else Kathy could relate to: the need to do something.  This wasn’t just Toshiko that was affected; this was Alice’s family as well as Kathy’s friends.  “Isn’t there something…?”

“No,” Estelle said kindly.  “Kathy will help; but it’ll be a bit too crowded with all four of us in the bedroom.  Alice, why don’t you go out and wait with your Tad and the Earth Dragon?  You’ll know if this works just by watching them.”

“And what about the Earth Dragon?” she asked.  “If we’re all supposed to forget that bastard, does this spell also affect him? Or doesn’t he count, being a spirit?”

That was a good question, one that Kathy had been thinking about herself.  The Earth Dragon hadn’t actually mentioned himself in all these plans; he’d only said that Ianto would most likely not recall what had occurred.

They all turned to Rhiannon.  She was the expert on the Great Dragons, so she might have the answer to that.

Rhiannon shrugged.  “I’m sure he’ll figured that out, because no mortal spell will affect him.  Alice and I can ask him about it.”

Alice still looked like she wanted to argue, but she finally sighed.  “Alright.  Let’s ask him.”

Estelle patted her on the shoulder.  “We’re going to fix this, Alice.”

“I know.  I just hate feeling helpless!”

“There’ll be plenty to do if this works,” Kathy assured her.  “We’ll still have to storm the Hub…that should be fun.”  She let a little sarcasm enter her words, and Alice reacted by rolling her eyes.

“We’ll be out in the garden,” Rhiannon said, tugging on Alice’s hand to get her moving.  Alice looked as if she wanted to protest one more time, yet she stayed silent as Rhiannon led her away. 

Kathy glanced at Estelle, who watched as the two other women left the lounge.  “I really dread to think what we’ll do if this doesn’t work.”

“We’ll just have to figure out another plan,” the detective answered.  “We don’t give up until we get our own back.”

That got Kathy a bright smile.  “Then let’s get started.”

Estelle’s bedroom was not quite as small as she claimed, but the furniture took up a great deal of that space.  A large dresser with a tall mirror sat against one entire wall, and was a pale wood that Kathy couldn’t identify…but then, she wasn’t into all that interior decorating shit so it really didn’t matter.  The headboard was the same colour, as was the bedside table.  On another wall was a chest of drawers that also matched, and its top was covered with photos and mementos from Estelle’s long life.  Kathy could make out Harkness himself in a couple of the framed pictures, wearing an old-time RAF uniform.

Toshiko lay on top of the faded quilt that covered the bed.  She’d trusted the others to make her fiancée comfortable, and she hadn’t been disappointed.  Tosh’s dark hair fanned out about her head, where it was resting on the pillow, and her hands were loosely clasped on her stomach.  She looked completely peaceful as she slept there, and once again she stole Kathy’s heart. 

Estelle cleared away several objects from the dresser without much regard to their condition, moving a jewellery box and several bottles of perfume – many of them expensive judging from the labels – to reveal a silver tray with a glass surface.  She set her candles down on it, the red between each of the white ones.  “There should be some matches on the chest,” she murmured, “and if they aren’t there maybe you could oblige in lighting the candles…?”

Kathy went to retrieve the matches.  She didn’t have to root around too much; the small box was next to yet another candle, this one blue and mostly burned down.  Luckily for her, because she didn’t quite trust her fire abilities that far. Lighting candles was just too delicate a task for her lacklustre control.  She’d have to work on that.

“What do I need to do?” she asked as she handed the matches over.

Estelle lit first the red candle, and then each of the white ones.  “Nothing, really,” she admitted, facing Kathy.  “I just knew you wouldn’t want to stay away while I performed this.”

Well, Kathy couldn’t argue with that, although she did feel completely useless.

Estelle took a deep breath, staring at the candles.  She began muttering words that Kathy couldn’t understand, her eyes flashing gold as she spoke.

The candles flared brightly, as if trying to match that otherworldly colour in Estelle’s eyes.  Kathy could feel the magic building, and her heart thumped wildly in her chest, praying to whoever she could think of that this would work, that Toshiko would be back to her normal self after Estelle was done

The witch’s hands twitched.  On the bed, Toshiko’s body also jerked slightly, and her eyes snapped open, glowing gold to match Estelle’s.

Toshiko gasped, her eyes seeming to focus on Kathy for one second, and then they closed once more.

Estelle fell silent.  Kathy wanted to move toward her fiancée, but she glanced back at the witch, saying, “Did it work?”

Estelle blew out the candles and then turned.  “I don’t know.  We’ll have to wake her up and see.”

That was Kathy’s signal to climb up onto the large bed and take Toshiko’s hand in hers.  “How do I do that?”

There was a chuckle.  “I understand sometimes a kiss will do the trick, if you didn’t want to wait until the spell wore off.”

Kathy didn’t know if Estelle was teasing her, but it didn’t matter.  She leaned over and pressed her lips against Tosh’s, her need to know far outweighing anything else.

Toshiko’s eyes fluttered open.

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

**_13 September 2008_ **

****

Alice allowed herself to be tugged along by Rhiannon, despite her wanting to know just what was happening in Estelle’s bedroom.  The excuse that the room was too small wasn’t exactly true; it had been her and Rhiannon who’d managed to get Toshiko into the house after Estelle had put her to sleep, so she knew just exactly how large it was. 

However, she could understand why Kathy would want to be involved as Estelle worked her magic.  After all, Toshiko was her fiancée; it would have been Alice who’d insisted if it had been Steven lying on that bed. 

She shuddered; that thought terrified her nearly out of her skin.

The Earth Dragon – still wearing her Tad’s body, which was just now becoming disturbing on so many levels – blinked down at her as the pair entered the back garden once more.  Adam was still where they’d left him, entangled in roots and vines that had been grown magically from the ground.  It made her think of her own powers; abilities that just seemed to be growing as time went on.  Now she always knew when it was going to rain, and could make small wind gusts blow around her. 

Alice knew she was in too deep now.  She couldn’t have left this behind now even if hers and Steven’s lives depended on it.

The thing was, she was certain that would most likely happen, some day.

Looking up at the dragon who had become as dear to her as a second father, Alice realised she wouldn’t trade this for anything.  Because, she knew, no matter what did happen, she had a strong family who would do their damnedest to make certain she and her son were safe.

However, it was now time to save those self-same family members from whatever that…creature, Adam, had done to them.

The bastard had the audacity to smirk at her as she and Rhiannon approached.

“Kathy and Estelle are with Tosh,” Rhiannon reported. “We should know something soon.”

“Whatever you’re going to do won’t work,” Adam said smugly. 

“That is what you claim,” the Earth Dragon answered placidly.  “However, I have faith that Estelle will be able to wipe your influence from Toshiko’s mind.  And, once she does, we shall do the same with the rest of our family.”

Alice couldn’t help it; she completely believed the Earth Dragon and his confidence in the situation.  She didn’t fight it, because that would have been like fighting against a rip tide…utterly impossible.  She would only tire herself out if she tried. 

No, she had to believe it, because there was no way she was going to back down on her vow to get vengeance on that son of a bitch who’d messed with the people she cared about.

“You said Ianto wouldn’t remember anything,” Rhiannon replied, staring the dragon in the eye.  She sounded almost combative, which was a bit surprising given that the Welsh woman was such a staunch supporter of all four Great Dragons and was probably their greatest worshipper outside of her Tad.

The familiar – yet strange – smile graced the dragon’s features.  “Adam was unable to influence him,” the spirit confirmed, “and in fact didn’t even see him…there was only the attempt to change Ianto’s memories, which would not have succeeded even without my well-meaning yet completely useless intercession.  In fact, I most likely made things worse, since my actions left Toshiko defenceless to Adam’s whims.  I might have been able to keep Adam from doing as much damage as he had if I had not intervened.”  He sounded apologetic without actually coming out with an apology.

“But what about you?” Alice demanded.  “You’ll remember him! Won’t that bring him back?”

“I can only affect those I touch,” Adam conceded. 

He seemed sincere, but Alice didn’t believe him.

Neither, apparently, did Rhiannon.

“I call bullshit!  You’re just saying that so you can come back after we’ve gotten rid of you.”

She did have a point. “We can’t take that risk,” Alice added.  “It’s everyone, or no one.”

She thought the bastard looked faintly disappointed.

“Do not worry about me,” the Earth Dragon answered.  “My mind is vastly different from an ephemeral’s.  I can easily shut his presence from my memory.  There will be no danger of him returning.”

Alice let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.  The last thing any of them needed was for Adam to try again. 

Suddenly, Adam twitched.

His body shimmered, like a heat haze lifting off a summer-hot sidewalk.  Alice blinked, not certain of what she was seeing at first, but then the blur vanished, and Adam was solid once more.

She knew immediately what that meant, and couldn’t keep the grin from her face.

_Got you, you son of a bitch._

The panic that set in was impressive.  Adam’s face went white, and his eyes widened in terror.  “What have you done?” he gasped.

“I think that would have been fairly obvious.” The Earth Dragon was practically gloating. 

“It worked!” Rhiannon crowed in delight.  “Estelle did it!”

“Indeed she did,” the Earth Dragon confirmed.  “Toshiko is ours once more.”

Alice laughed in sheer relief.  They had a way to get their friends and family back, and to stop Adam from doing this to anyone else. 

Then she sobered.  “Now we just have to get the rest of Torchwood to cooperate.”

“I think I might have an idea about that.”

Alice spun at the familiar voice, the smile back on her face.  “Welcome back.”

Toshiko stood just outside the back door, Kathy hovering just behind her and Estelle standing beyond.  Her face was washed out, and her eyes tired, but Toshiko returned Alice’s welcoming expression.  “It’s good to be back,” she answered, crossing her arms across her chest as if she was hugging herself. 

Then her face darkened.  She walked forward, until she was practically nose-to-nose with Adam. “So… this is him?” she murmured, her voice flat as she stared down the man that had mentally raped her.  “You’re the one who made me forget my fiancée and my best friend?”

Adam met her gaze, his own face friendly.  “C’mon, Tosh…it wasn’t so bad.  Not that you would remember that now, of course.  I thought we made a great team.”

Kathy bristled, but she stayed away, which made Alice proud.  Toshiko needed to fight this on her own. 

“And I don’t want to remember,” Toshiko hissed.  “I don’t have to, to know that you used me.  And I don’t want the details, either.  Nothing you say will make what you did to me right.”  She turned away, walking toward the dragon that sat on his haunches, his eyes dark and soft at the same time.  “Are you okay?” she asked, touching the dragon’s scaled side.

“I will be fine,” the Earth Dragon assured her.  “Both of us will be as soon as you help us regain our balance and I can separate myself from my son.”

Adam began wriggling against the grasp of the roots that bound him, but as Alice watched they simply tightened with the movement.  “You’re ruining everything!” he shouted, his expression suddenly wild with fear or anger, Alice couldn’t say. 

“I should hope so,” Kathy growled.

“You said you had a way to get to Torchwood?” Alice practically demanded.  If there was a plan, she didn’t want to wait any longer to implement it.

Toshiko nodded.  “I do.  I also think we should get the Earth Dragon out of Ianto before we make our move.” She turned back to the dragon. “You might want to get him transformed back into his human form first.  It would be best if he’s in the Hub before we go about erasing memories…”

 

**********

 

Alice had once sworn to herself that she would never set foot within the Hub.

And yet, there she was, ready to make just such a trip into the very bowels of Torchwood.

For the longest time, she’d always considered everyone who worked for Torchwood being as close to a devil as someone could get.  They’d been the bogeymen that her mother had frightened her with, on those days when she’d been naughty.  To Alice, the Hub represented a place where bad things happened, where the employees did whatever they wanted and believed they were in the right, no matter what their actions were.  It was the place that had taken her only father away from her; yes, she’d been scared of him because of his being immortal, but Torchwood was a level beyond that.  There had been no way in her lifetime that she would ever set foot within the hell of her worst nightmares.

And yet, there she was…sitting in a car parked next to the ubiquitous Torchwood SUV, getting ready to practically storm the place in order to save her father and the other members of his team.

She had over a year of perspective to change her mind about Torchwood.  However, she still held that same fear of the Hub.  It was illogical, but she really didn’t care.

Andy Davidson had come to greet them, the detective constable leaning against the driver’s side door, speaking through the open window.  “No one’s come in or gone out,” he reported, “at least, not that I’m aware of.  No one left via the Plass and,” he shrugged toward the SUV, “that’s still here.”

“Good,” Kathy said.  She sat behind the wheel of the unmarked police car they were all sitting in.  “I want you to head back to CID – “

“But you might need me!” Davidson argued.

“Davidson,” she sighed, then added, “Andy.  You’re the only one of us who doesn’t know what’s going on – “

“Shouldn’t you read me in then?”

“No,” she snapped.  “You’re gonna be our insurance policy in case something happens.”  She reached into the centre console, pulling out a sealed letter.  “Read this, then destroy it.  I can’t see it after all this is over.  You’ll understand why I’m pulling you off this once you open the envelope.”  She handed it over; the younger copper took it like he was being given some sort of bomb.  “I might act strange after I get back, but you can’t react.  That will tell you what to do.”

Davidson seemed to get that this was important, because he snapped to attention.  “You got it, boss.”

From where she could see Kathy’s face from her seat just behind her, Alice watched the relief flow over her features.  “You’re a good man, Andy Davidson, and I’m glad I took you on.  Get, now.  I’ll see you later.”

“See you back at the station.” With those parting words, Davidson nodded to her, and his eyes flickered over the rest of the occupants of the vehicle, and then walked away. 

Estelle sat in the front seat, Moses on her lap and a large bag at her feet containing what she’d need for the spells she’d need to cast.  In the back seat were Alice with the sleeping form of her Tad stuffed between herself and Toshiko.  Rhiannon had followed in her own vehicle; she would be leaving as soon as things were done in the Hub, heading back to Ddraig Llyn, where she would have her own local witch take her memories of the trip to Cardiff.  It had been decided that it would be far too difficult to explain why she was in town.  Back home, she could at least have her husband cover for her; in fact, she had a letter like the one Kathy had given Andy, giving him a brief explanation – without too much detail – in order to help him cover for the lost memories.  Johnny could take things from there.

Speaking of Rhiannon…she made her way up to the car, taking Davidson’s place at the driver’s side door.  “Are we ready?”

“We are,” Estelle answered with conviction.  She opened her door, and climbed from the vehicle.

That seemed to be the cue for the rest of them.  Alice got out on her side, stepping out of Kathy’s way as she exited the front.  Her heart was beating so hard, Alice was shocked to discover that no one seemed to be able to hear it. 

They would leave Ianto in the car for now.  It had taken all four Dragon Friends to get him into the car; the dragon weighed a ton, and Alice could understand now why her Dad often teased Ianto about his weight. He’d collapsed once the Earth Dragon had been able to remove himself from her Tad, leaving it up to them to get him into the car.  They all knew he needed to be in the Hub once everyone woke up from what Estelle was about to do, because the less questions asked the better...even though there would be, alone just at the condition of the clothes he was wearing.  Ianto, Toshiko, and Patrick had been on their way into the Hub when Adam had attacked, and everyone needed to be on hand when they regained consciousness.

The four Dragon Friends and Estelle would have to be gone when that happened. 

There was a muffled thump from the boot of the vehicle, and Toshiko slammed her fist into the metal of the car over where the sound had come from.  She didn’t say anything though.  There really wasn’t anything to say to the bastard who’d caused all this in the first place.  If everything went to plan, then the boot would be empty the next time Kathy opened it.

Alice took a deep breath to try to settle her nerves…not that it worked, of course.  She followed Kathy toward the hidden door that led into the Hub from the car park, and she watched as the other woman touched a section of the wall.  A keypad appeared from behind a section of concrete, and she tapped in a code that had the door opening silently.

“I’ll go first,” Estelle said.  “If we run into anyone, I’ll need to put them to sleep.” 

No one argued with her. 

They followed the witch into the corridor beyond the door.  Alice didn’t even hear it close behind them; when she looked back, it was shut.  Her heart hammered harder at the idea of being trapped within the Torchwood Hub.

The one place she’d never wanted to be.

Toshiko moved up beside Estelle, murmuring directions to her as their group made their way deeper into the heart of Torchwood in Cardiff.  Kathy was just behind her, and Alice understood the need for her to keep her lover in sight after everything that had occurred.

Alice and Rhiannon walked side by side, Rhiannon looking around as if she were some sort of tourist, a vague look of awe on her face as she took in her surroundings.  Alice wished she could feel the same, but this place was where all her worst fears lay, and there would be no way for her to get past that.  It didn’t matter that her Dad and Tad worked there; to Alice, it was still the place her mother had once told her that she’d never leave if she’d ever found herself within, and while she knew intellectually that wasn’t true it was something she doubted she’d never be able to break.

She herself didn’t look around.  She kept her eyes focused on Toshiko and Estelle as they led the way forward, deeper and deeper, toward their destination. 

The closer they got, the more nervous Alice became.  What if this didn’t work?  Yes, it had done on Toshiko, but would it on the others?  Her Dad was from another time…did he have some sort of immunity, like he did to actually dying?  This entire plan could easily fail if only one of the Torchwood team managed to keep their memories of Adam and what he had done.

It seemed like only second before they were at the main Hub.

They came out near a short flight of steps, and Toshiko led them confidently, Estelle at her side.  Alice peered out from behind them and into the huge space, and it wasn’t at all what she’d imagined.  For one thing, the place looked old and well lived-in, and the tiles on the walls were something she’d seen every time she’d needed to take the Underground somewhere.  There were metal gantries and flooring grids and several desks that had what looked like very high-tech equipment on them.

“What the hell?” came an American voice.  “Tosh, who are these people?”

It wasn’t her father’s.  Alice assumed it had to have been Patrick Delaware.  She’d heard about him, of course, but this was the first time she’d ever seen him.  He seemed…almost non-descript, really, with dark hair and dark eyes, wearing a leather jacket and jeans.  Just under the jacket Alice could make out a gun holster, and she took a step back, hoping he wasn’t going to reach for it.

“It’s okay,” Toshiko soothed.  “They aren’t a danger.”

Estelle didn’t seem to want to take a chance.  Her hand swept forward, and that unmistakable scent of lavender filled Alice’s nose, recognising it as the physical component of the sleep spell she’d used on Ianto and Toshiko. 

Patrick’s eyelids fluttered closed, and he sighed as he slumped to the floor, fast asleep.

After that, it was only a matter of moments incapacitating the rest of the team…except for Jack, who was nowhere to be seen.

Alice had been afraid that he’d somehow left the Hub without Andy noticing, but then a very familiar voice shouted, “Stop right there!”

It came from above, and Alice craned her neck to see Jack standing on one of the gantries, his gun drawn and pointing in their direction.  She could see the suspicion in his gaze as he stared them down from his position high above.  “Toshiko,” he snapped, “care to explain why you’ve brought strangers into the Hub?”

Alice’s heart plummeted even as her rage roared like a living fire within her.  He didn’t remember her.  Adam had taken Jack’s memories of his own daughter.  She wanted to scream but somehow remained silent.

“You know Estelle, Jack,” Toshiko reminded him, gesturing toward the older woman who was standing there, hand raised, poised to cast her sleep spell in case Jack decided to start firing.  “She was your lover during World War Two.  Remember?”

Jack twitched slightly, but his aim didn’t waver.

“And you know Alice,” Tosh went on.  “She’s your daughter – “

“I don’t have a daughter,” Jack growled.  “I don’t know any of them.  Step away, Toshiko…they’ve messed with your mind somehow.”

“No, Dad,” Alice spoke up, “you’re the one who’s been messed with!” She moved away from the group, holding her hands up to show she was unarmed.  “You’ve been made to forget me and your own grandson…and your mate, Ianto. Adam did this to you – “

“Adam is a member of this team,” he denied.  “I’d trust him more than I would someone I’d never met before.”

Alice’s heart wanted to break. 

Her power was reacting to her emotions.  A sudden wind picked up in the Hub, where there shouldn’t be one. It whipped her air across her face as she tried to talk her father down from where he was ready and willing to shoot them all.  She didn’t want to hurt him; that was the last thing on her mind.  But they also couldn’t risk Estelle’s sleep spell sending him over the spindly railing of the overhead gantry…yes, he would come back if the fall killed him, but Alice knew just what he went through when he died, and she wanted to keep that from happening.

“If you won’t listen to her,” Toshiko said, “then listen to me, Jack.  This is Alice, your daughter.  Adam is some sort of alien who steals and warps memories.  We’ve been infiltrated, Jack.  And I wouldn’t be saying this if it wasn’t true.” 

Jack’s eyes narrowed.  “You could be the one compromised.”

Alice actually heard Toshiko swallow hard.  “I could be, yes.  But I’m not.  Jack…check the computers.  If Adam’s been here as long as he claims, then we’d have records of him going back that far.  But I’m willing to bet you his presence only goes back a couple of days.  Just look for yourself, Jack. Mainframe wouldn’t lie to you…not about this.”

Alice could see that Toshiko had him even before he lowered his arm.  “Alright,” he agreed.  “But if he is there…”

“Then I’m wrong,” the technician said, “and I’ll give up quietly.  We all will.”

With those assurances, Jack came down from his perch.

He didn’t put his gun away, though. 

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are, the end of this story. The next one is in the Future Verse, and was actually written back during NaNo last year, so it's complete. I'll start posting it next week.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

 

**_13 September 2008_ **

 

****

Ianto awoke, his head feeling about five sizes too large for his shoulders to hold up and his entire body aching.  He couldn’t help but groan as he levered himself upright, and he blinked as his eyes took their sweet time adjusting to the gloom surrounding him.

He was in his hoard room at the Hub, and he had no idea how he’d gotten there, let alone why he was in currently in his human form if he’d been sleeping…or maybe passed out?  Had he been drinking?

Flailing a little in the soft pillows and quilts that lined his nest, Ianto slowly climbed to his feet, hissing as his bare soles touched cold concrete.  It actually took him a few seconds to realise that he was missing both shoes and socks, and that led him to take a really good look at his appearance.

“What the hell?” he growled, his voice sounding gravelly to his own ears.

He looked as if he’d crawled miles through a sewer.

He smelled like it, too, he couldn’t help but notice.

What really bothered Ianto was the fact that he couldn’t remember how he got into such a state.

And why on Earth Jack would have left him like this, if indeed his mate was the one responsible for putting him to bed in his hoard room in the first place.

It was all a complete blank. And no amount of alcohol would have done _that_ to him.

The dragon knew something was dreadfully wrong.  He was not only filthy, but he was missing parts of his memory.  The last thing he could recall was arriving in Cardiff from Geneva, and thinking there was something wrong at the Hub when no one had come to meet him, Patrick, and Toshiko at the airport.  Ianto knew it couldn’t be Retcon; it simply didn’t work on him.  So something else had to have taken his memories and had left him in his present state.

He couldn’t help but shiver at the implication.

And what had something happened to the rest of the team?

Ianto scrambled out of his nest and to the heavy door that closed his hoard room off from the rest of the Hub, throwing it open and causing it to slam against the wall in a rare display of his dragon-ish strength.  He just knew there was something wrong; that he had to find the team – his family – and make certain they were alright.

He needed to find Jack. 

His heart pounding almost fit to burst, Ianto took off at a run down the corridor that led to the main area of the Hub, fear making his feet practically fly across the stone, his imagination painting all sorts of pictures that he really didn’t want to see.  Someone had to have put him in his hoard room, but for what reason he had no idea.  It couldn’t have been to get him out of the way, since the door hadn’t been locked…not that it would have stopped him from leaving, what with the trick latch and all.

Ianto had to know if the others were okay.  If they weren’t…well, he’d hunt down whoever or whatever had done this and make them pay.

When he reached the main Hub, he had to stop in shock, bare feet skidding to a wobbly halt. 

The entire team was there, either unconscious or asleep Ianto could not say.

However, he could tell they weren’t dead, if just from the noises Rhys was making.  He was slumped over his desk, face smashed into the keyboard of his computer, snoring pretty loudly.  Ianto made his way over to him, and couldn’t help the small huff of laughter at the sight of his friend drooling on the “F” key. 

Toshiko was also at her workstation, but she had the keyboard pushed out of the way and her head pillowed on her arms, looking peaceful.  Patrick was sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of the sofa, his own head in a position that Ianto just knew would have him waking up with a nasty crick in his neck.  Deborah herself was on the sofa, curled up in a ball, with Owen practically laying on top of her, and Ianto wanted to get a picture of the prickly doctor actually cuddling their PA. It was undeniably cute, and Ianto knew he could use it for so much blackmail material later.

And Jack…

Jack looked as if he’d simply passed out against the wall next to his office door, his hands splayed in his lap and his head bowed, legs folded slightly at the knees.  Ianto went to him immediately, crouching down beside him, resting his hand on his mate’s shoulder and shaking him gently.  “Jack,” he murmured, needing to know he was alright.

It took a couple of times of calling his name, but Jack finally began rousing himself, lifting his head and blinking blurrily.  It would have been adorable if Ianto wasn’t so worried about what had caused this strange bout of narcolepsy in himself and the rest of the team.  “Ianto?” he asked muzzily as he came awake.  He glanced around, frowning.  “What the hell…?”

“That was my reaction, too,” the dragon replied, helping his mate to his feet.

“How are you even here?” Jack demanded.  He seemed to notice the others, and his frown deepened.  “You and Toshiko and Patrick were in Geneva…”

“I remember the airport,” Ianto answered, shivering slightly.  It was his turn to frown; he didn’t know why his body was reacting the way it was, just from that sentence…no, it was the word, ‘remember’, that was triggering him.  “No one was there to meet us…”

“We’re missing time?”  Jack really didn’t look happy.  “Were we Retconned?”

“No, you know Retcon doesn’t work on me…”  He just didn’t understand it.  “And we were all deeply asleep from what I could tell.”

Jack finally seemed to see the condition of Ianto’s clothing, wrinkling his nose at the smell.  “Did you crawl through a sewer or something?”

“No idea,” he said, not adding that that had been his own thoughts on the state of this jeans and sweater. 

A small groan had them both glancing toward their team.  Patrick was moving, shaking his head and wincing in pain as he roused.  Owen and Deborah were also awakening, and the medic practically jumped away when he noticed how he was sleeping.  Deborah managed to look mortified even though it was obvious she wasn’t fully functional yet.

Both Rhys and Toshiko were coming to as well, and the groan that Rhys let out sounded pitiful as he wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth. Toshiko was frowning, her eyes darting around the Hub, obviously confused.  “How did I get here?” she managed to say, her voice sounding harsh and she cleared her throat.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Ianto said, resting his hand at the small of Jack’s back, suddenly needing to ground himself in his mate.  This was so wrong, and he tried to search his memory to discover something…anything that would explain just how he, Toshiko, and Patrick had ended up in the Hub and how they’d all gone to sleep and lost at least several hours of memories.

“Bloody hell,” Owen swore, levering himself to stand.  He wavered slightly, but didn’t lose his balance.  “What the fuck is going on?”

“That’s a question I’d like the answer to as well,” Patrick muttered.  He was rubbing his neck obviously trying to work the kinks out.  “The last thing I remember we’d just gotten into Cardiff…”

Ianto felt himself twitch again, and this time Jack must have felt it as well, judging from the searching look he was giving the dragon. Ianto shook his head; he didn’t understand it, either.  He didn’t have the answer as to why that particular word was making him jumpy, although it had to have had something to do what had made them all forget.  It scared him in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Me too,” Toshiko added.  She stretched, then pulled her keyboard toward her. “I’m going to search the Hub’s internal cameras…”

“Good idea,” Jack said.  He reached around and took Ianto’s hand, towing the dragon toward Toshiko’s workstation, the better to hover over their technician’s shoulder as she worked.  “What’s the last thing everyone remembers?”

And there was that twitchy sensation again.  Ianto frowned as he let himself be led, wondering just what it was about that single word that was causing such an unconscious reaction in him.

“I was up in the Tourist Office,” Deborah was the first to answer.  “I think there as some sort of Rift alert because I seem to recall that the team was out of the Hub…”  She ran her hand through her hair, in what had to have been an unconscious effort to shake some of her memories loose.

Ianto thought of the phone call he’d made to Jack on their last night in Geneva; it had been interrupted by a Rift alert.  It made him wonder if whatever threat this had been had come through the Rift.  Hadn’t Deborah said something about the team bringing someone back, when he’d called her with their flight information?

His head hurt when he considered that, and decided that it was something he should be forgetting this, too. 

“I don’t even recall that,” Owen denied.  “I had an autopsy planned…some sort of weird death or something…”  He made his way toward the autopsy bay, peering down over the railing.  “Whoever put me on that sofa must’ve put that body away ‘cause it’s gone.” He turned back, his expression puzzled.  “The only person who’d be that anal is Dragon Boy.”

“If I did,” Ianto snorted, “then I must have done it in my sleep, because I was tucked away in my hoard room when I woke up and nowhere near the vaults or the autopsy bay.”

Owen opened his mouth to make some sort of snarky comeback, but Toshiko interrupted him. “All the internal camera footage has been erased for the last two days.”

“Who’d do that?” Rhys asked. 

“I suggest we put the Hub into partial lockdown,” Patrick put in.  He was suddenly all business, his hand resting on the butt of the weapon at his hip.  His eyes were darting around, taking in his surroundings, searching for any possible threats that might be lurking in the shadows. “We don’t know if whoever did this to us isn’t still around.”

Ianto silently cursed.  Of course, he should have considered that the danger wasn’t gone.  Instead, he’d blundered around without even considering that they might still not be safe.  He couldn’t help the growl that rose up in his chest and his eyes changed into their dragon aspect without effort.

“Down, dragon,” Jack murmured, squeezing his hand.  “Let’s see what we’re dealing with before you go all vengeance-y on us, okay?”

Ianto took a deep breath, pulling his true self back under control.  Jack was right.  It wouldn’t go to lose his temper like that before they had all the facts.  Then, of course, all bets were off.  He’d hunt down whoever was responsible and make them pay.  He owed it to his family.

“It wouldn’t do any good anyway,” Toshiko replied.  “Since the ones who left us like this was ourselves.”

That caused an uproar, everyone talking at once in their surprise.  Ianto was stunned as noise erupted around him. Why?  What had happened that had made them want to lose their memories the way they had? 

Jack whistled piercingly, the better to bring order back to the team. “What do you have?” he asked Toshiko.

She was shaking her head.  “I’m the one who wiped the records of the last 48 hours,” she answered.   “Not only is it the internal video recordings, but it’s _everything_.  Every sensor reading, every log entry…all of it’s gone.  And I’m the one who was responsible.”

“So there’s no chance in getting anything back then.”  Patrick didn’t put that as a question; they all knew just how brilliant Toshiko was.  If she really did wipe all the records, then she would have made certain they were unrecoverable.

“There’s something else,” Toshiko added, touching one of the keys on her board.

The large monitor in the centre of her workstation flickered, the familiar twisting blue of the screensaver blinking off, going black for a split second before being replaced by a video.

It was Toshiko.

_“You’re seeing this because I knew you’d all want to try to work out what was going on,”_ the Toshiko on the screen began, _“and I needed to warn you not to look into it.”_

Ianto squeezed Jack’s hand, and his mate returned the gesture.  His heart was beating hard, almost as if he’d flown a great distance, and the dragon had no clue why.  His eyes watched as the Toshiko who’d made the recording continued, and he couldn’t help but notice the haunted expression on her face and the pain in her eyes.

_“What happened was bad,”_ she continued, taking a shuddering breath.  _“We needed to forget all about it and I needed to wipe all the evidence away so there’d be no chance of us ever remembering.”_

Ianto shivered slightly, and the Toshiko in the recording looked right at him, as if somehow knowing he was there and would react to that particular word.  _“I’m sorry, Ianto…you won’t know why you’re feeling the way you do, but trust me when I say it won’t last.  And I’m also sorry I can’t even explain to you why.”_

She really did sound apologetic, and Ianto reached out with his free hand and rested it on _his_ Toshiko’s shoulder, hoping she would understand the gesture.  Her hand came up and clasped his where it rested, tangling her fingers around his.

_“You can’t pursue this.  We cannot risk the memories coming back. You should also know that Kathy, Alice, Estelle, and even Rhiannon were involved in saving us all, so they’re going to have blank spots as well.  Each of them left notes to themselves so I really hope they can accept that they can’t ever try to find out what happened.  Andy Davidson knows the most, but not anything that would put us in danger. He’s going to be our watcher in case we accidentally trigger something.”_

Ianto’s heart went into his throat at that.  He and Jack had once talked about Alice, and had come to the conclusion that they’d never wanted her or Steven to become so involved in Torchwood business that it would risk her and their grandson being alienated from them for any reason.  And now, it looked as if she’d gotten so deep that she’d had to lose her own memories as well.  He vowed to phone her as soon as he could, knowing that Jack would be feeling the exact same way.  They needed to know she was going to be okay with what had been done to her and that it wouldn’t cause her to withdraw from them.

_“Finally,”_ Toshiko on the screen said, _“I hope you can all forgive us.  We did what we had to do, and we would do the same thing if this ever happened again.  Especially you, Jack…we know how you feel about losing your memories, but we had to do it.  There was no choice.  We didn’t use Retcon…thanks to Estelle that wasn’t necessary.  But we have no idea how permanent the magic she used is going to be so don’t try to dig anything up.  Trust me…I don’t want to lose any of you, not ever again.”_

The recording ceased, Toshiko’s face disappearing in favour of the ubiquitous screensaver.  There was silence, as each of them digested what they’d just learned.

It had to have been magic, Ianto realised even as Toshiko’s recorded words sank in.  Nothing else would have wiped his memories, and anyone who knew him had that information.  Estelle would have been the only one he’d have trusted to do it; Jack would have felt the exact same way.  His mate had already once had his memories tampered with, back in the days of the Time Agency, and it would have taken a lot of convincing to have allowed it done again. 

As if he could see what Ianto was thinking, Jack pulled him close, and the dragon needed the closeness as much as his mate did.  It was inconceivable that they’d have allowed anyone to do this thing, and yet they had.  What had happened to prompt the mind wipe must have been horrible, indeed.

And Jack must have been really rattled by it, if he was willing to stand being this close to Ianto in the dragon’s current state of filthiness.

“Well,” Rhys finally broke the quiet, “that’s totally fucked up.”

Ianto couldn’t help the bark of laughter that escaped him at his teammate’s comment.  Trust Rhys to put it so succinctly.

“Yeah,” Patrick agreed.  He finally looked calm enough to take his hand from the butt of his weapon.  “Got to agree with Rhys on that one.”

“So,” Jack said, his sharp eyes meeting each of theirs; Ianto nodded when his mate looked at him.  “We’re all in this, then?  We trust Toshiko and not look into this?”

“Don’t see where we have much of a choice,” Owen grumbled.  “Besides, Tosh wouldn’t steer us wrong.”

“I’m with Owen on that,” Deborah added.  “There was a good reason, and I think we all have to live with it.”

“I wouldn’t have warned us off without an excellent reason,” Toshiko replied.  “After all, it was me who wiped everything clean.  I wouldn’t have done that unless I was convinced it was absolutely necessary.”

This was true.  Ianto knew his friend; he knew Toshiko would not have gone along with something so radical as deleting important data without complete and undeniable proof.  She was the one person in the Hub that would have done everything she could to _preserve_ the information, and not erase it permanently.  So, for her to do so carried a weight that Ianto – and the rest of the team – could not deny. 

“Then we’re all agreed,” Jack said, his voice stern. “We don’t do anything to figure out what we’d gone through.  We let it stay forgotten.”

Ianto nodded grimly.  “We choose not to…remember.”

And that was the last time he reacted to that word. 

 

 

 


End file.
